The health care landscape is evolving and changing, but patients will still need access to care and health centers will need to serve them. It is particularly important now for health centers to operate efficiently and effectively in order to weather whatever lies ahead. Capital Link has created a library of resources and tools to assist health centers in planning, whether the goal is growth, stabilization, or sustainability. Below are some strategies to consider and a collection of related resources available to health centers and PCAs.
Assess Your Financial and Operational Strength. The best way to prepare for tomorrow is to understand where you stand today by tracking performance and benchmarking results against peers and targets.
Related Resources, Services, and Programs:
- Performance Benchmarking Toolkit for Health Centers (toolkit)
- Hallmarks of High Performance: Exploring the Relationship between Clinical, Financial and Operational Excellence at America's Health Centers (publication)
- High-Performance Community Health Centers: Learning, Measuring, and Achieving (publication)
- Performance Evaluation Profiles (service)
- Financial Trends Snapshot (service)
- Advancing Financial Strength (program)
- High-Performance Community Healthcare: How to Measure It and How To Achieve It (webinar)
Understand Your Market. Health centers should have an understanding of their communities and the unmet needs in order to identify opportunities for growth and better programs of care.
Related Resources and Services:
- Market Assessment for Service Expansion Rooted in the Community (upcoming webinar)
- Market Assessment and Payer Mix Modeling in an Era of Health Reform (webinar)
- Market Assessment and Patient Revenue Modeling (webinar)
- NACHC State Level Data and Maps (various online resources)
- Market Assessment Process (service)
- Community Asset Mapping (service)
- NACHC’s Protocol for Responding to and Assessing Patients’ Assets, Risks, and Experiences, or PRAPARE (toolkit)
Develop a Strategic Business Plan. The health centers most prepared to respond to changing conditions have developed a dynamic strategic plan that they use actively.
Related Resources and Services:
- Creating a Dynamic and Useful Strategic Plan: A Toolkit for Health Centers (toolkit)
- Creating a Business Plan for a Community Health Center Capital Project: a “How-To” Manual (toolkit)
- An Introduction to “Creating a Dynamic and Useful Strategic Plan”, a New Toolkit for Health Centers (webinar)
- Incorporating Capital Plans and Capitalization Goals into Strategic Planning (webinar)
Develop Your Leadership and Workforce. For the insight and agility to react to change, health centers need to have a strong board and staff. They also need to have the ability to support team-based care, recruit and retain providers, and establish project teams for expansion plans.
Related Resources and Services:
- Engaging Staff and Community in Defining Your Capital Project (publication)
- Planning for Growth: Health Center Board and Staff Training (webinar)
- An Introduction to Managing with Metrics (webinar)
- NACHC’s Staffing the Safety Net: Building the Primary Care Workforce at America’s Health Centers (report)
- NACHC’s Workforce Snapshot (fact sheet)
- Creating a Healthcare Facility that Supports the Patient-Centered Medical Home (publication)
- Creating a Place for Care: Fostering Alignment and Eliminating Barriers in the Patient-Centered Medical Home (publication)
- Developing an Organizational Culture that Sustains the Patient-Centered Medical Home: Lessons Learned (publication)
- Solutions, Training, and Assistance for Recruitment and Retention (STAR²) Center, project of the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved (resources and training)
Assess Your Capital Needs and Funding Sources. Understand your need for facilities and how to finance growth.
Related Resources and Services:
- Capital Plans and Needs of Health Centers: A National Perspective (report)
- Spotlight On Capital Resources series and Capital Project Financing resources (publications)
- Adding Fund Development Capacity to Sustain Health Center Growth (publication)
- Successful Health Center Project Stories (case studies)
- Financing Health Center Projects with New Markets Tax Credits (webinar)
- Accessing Capital from Community Development Financial Institutions (webinar)
- HRSA’s Capital Development Grant Technical Assistance (online resource)
Communicate Your Value. Now more than ever, it is imperative that health centers document and demonstrate the valuable impact they have on the communities they serve on national, statewide, and local levels.
Related Resources and Services:
- Value + Impact of Health Centers (report)
- HRSA's Year in Review (infographic)