1. It is so important for health care leaders to have their eyes open to the environment around them. They need to see details that are currently in the environment and on the horizon, which will impact the health care facility and its planning. Put yourself in the hospital CEO chair this week. Take a look around yourself, in your own community, your state, and our nation. Identify major environmental trends that will impact your own health care facility or one which you someday hope to lead. Share your observations here in our discussion this week.
2. Health care in America is a highly competitive industry. Have no doubt of that at all. Great health care leaders know their competitors very well and anticipate their moves in advance. As a health care CEO, or member of senior management for a health care organization, how will you go about identifying your competitors, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, determining their strategies, and anticipating their likely strategic responses?
3. Your text discusses characteristics of strengths or weaknesses such as value, rareness, imitability, and sustainability. These are important considerations for health care leaders as we assess or own organizations. Which characteristic do you feel is most important for health care organizations? Support your answer, and provide specific examples for your own health care facility or a facility which you would someday like to lead.
4. The board of directors of any health care organization has a crucial role in setting directional strategies for the facility or program today. This role has been expanding over recent years. Why is the board of directors' role so important today? As a health care CEO or senior manager, how would you involve your board of directors in this direction setting process?
5. Product Life Cycle (PLC) analysis is very relevant to health care programs and services. Perhaps you have not previously have considered medical services as a "product," but all the principles of Product Life Cycle do apply to our work in medicine, and you need to understand them. What adaptive strategic alternatives are indicated for each stage of the Product Life Cycle? Provide some specific examples.
6. Computer information systems are changing everything in American health care, both in the business office and at the bedside. What do you consider some of the most important impacts of information systems in medicine today, and how can information systems be used to develop competitive advantage for a health care organization or program?