Healthcare Scalability - the eight keys to success

Healthcare businesses are facing an unprecedented change. It is beginning to become apparent that size really does matter. Healthcare companies must scale or die.

The driver behind this sea change is the need for economies of scale. Without scale healthcare companies will not be able to address the monumental challenges facing the industry. The bottom line is that smaller players face extinction.

So what are the "eight keys to success" of healthcare scalability?

1. Clear Scalability Objectives

• Healthcare companies seeking to scale must have a clear understanding of what their scalability objectives are. There is a big difference between scaling from serving one million members to three million members. It is an even greater challenge moving to a business that can serve eight million members.

2. Clear Scalability Scope

• Scalability is not cheap, nor is it easy. Therefore a clear focus on what aspects of the business need to scale is vital for success. Without a strict focus on scalability all sorts of other elements can come into play that distract from the core goal.

3. Scalability Guiding Principle

• Scalability guiding principles is an area that requires clear focus. Without understanding key scalability principles like "assume a moving target" scalability is unlikely to succeed.

4. Scorecard Driven Approach

• To "win" at scalability a clear scorecard is required. What are the scalable IT, Process and organizational SLAs that must be achieved in order to "win". Without laser focus on what winning means scalability initiatives will fail!

5. Model

• A model of your business is key to success. Without a good model you can't hope to scale effectively. The model should give you an:

1. Understanding of Current & Future Processing Timelines

2. Model of Current and Future Volumes

3. Model of Forecasted SLA

6. Scalability Strategies

• Like any challenge healthcare companies seeking to scale need strategies for success

1. Strategies for how you scale your existing IT systems

2. Strategies for how you scale your customer services

3. Strategies for how do you scale your healthcare services?

4. Etc.

7. Monitoring

• Monitoring performance against SLAs becomes mission critical in a scaled up organization. Little problems become big problems at scale. Therefore a new level of sophistication is required to monitor and improve your business performance.

8. End 2 End (E2E) testing & Organizational Readiness Testing

• Scale is different. Going form serving one million members to eight or ten million members is different. You cannot just "imagine" what it will be like. You need to know what it will be like. That is where End to End and Org Readiness testing comes in. To borrow a "mantra" from the US army “for healthcare at scale” it is necessary "to train like you fight and fight like you train".