Forces and Trends for Urgent Care

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Paula's Rough Draft & Research

Definitions:

STEEP - Social, Cultural, demographic; Technology; Economy; Environment; Political, legal, regulatory

The remote environment consists of the study of the economic trend such as the level of disposable income, inflation rate and prime rate, the study of social factors such as life style of consumers.

The political factor also plays an important role in external environment. Political factor focuses on the legal and regulation that has direct impact on the organization.

According to Pearce and Robinson (2004), in order to avoid obsolescence and promote innovation, a company must be aware of technological changes that might have industry influence. Creative technological adaptations can suggest possibilities for new products, for improvements in existing products, or in manufacturing and marketing techniques (Pearce & Robinson, 2004).

The operating environment comprises factors in the competitive situation that affect an organizations success in acquiring needed resources or in profitably marketing its goods and services. Among the most important of these factors are the firm's competitive position, the composition of its customers, its reputation among suppliers and creditors, and its ability to attract capable employees (Pearce & Robinson, 2004).

The industry environment cover the degree of competition in an industry depends on factor such as the threat of new competitors and/or the magnitude of their current competitor. To establish a strategic agenda for dealing with their competitors, a company must understand how they work in its industry and how they affect the company in its particular situation (Pearce & Robinson, 2004).
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Paula's Research:

For the purpose of this assignment, I have chosen Urgent Care, the newest trend to facilitate non-urgent and non-life threatening patient care services.

The three forces or trends in Urgent Care are: ( I will pick 3 from those I have researched below):

ECONOMIC
Recession or boom in the economy has negative or positive impact on urgent care operations. Recession has negative impact on government grants, funding or spending on healthcare, reduced spending on healthcare by consumers, etc. When there is not a recession, spending on healthcare increases, and government provides more grant for healthcare.

In order to combat economic fluctuations, Urgent Care needs to diversify operations so that depression in one economy is offset by another one. For example, during tough times, Urgent Care can depend on cost cutting initiatives to combat recession and for the organizations other departments such as the hospital, nursing home, assisted living, home care, behavioral health care, and health care clinics to keep operations diversified enough to be maintained during the recession.

Urgent Care can appeal patients and reach a wider target segment to allow the company to offset emergency room visits that are more applicable to Urgent Care. This would allow emergency rooms to increase more life threatening visits and Urgent Care to see increased non urgent visits. This would streamline both departments and processes.

Urgent Care has the resources, infrastructure and capabilities to remain a leader in the healthcare industry. The impact of a recession will be minimal as compared to other health care services.

POLITICAL
Political factors deal with federal or government agency mandates. Any adverse changes in the political environment in the country, such as change of political power or other political turmoil can impact the functioning of Urgent Care. Urgent Care reimbursement depends on the appropriate billing and payment by government funding in some cases such as Medicaid. Government guidelines must be followed for payment. Political forces have an important bearing on the overall functioning and efficiency of the agency. For ...