The ability to develop and build successful partnerships is a key factor to the growth and success of any organization. Succeeding as a healthcare provider or vendor means frequent adjustments must be made to business practices in order to combat changing regulations. Time and devotion to building relationships and partnerships with other organizations can easily slip as a priority. This post shares two methods for effectively improving your partnership initiatives along with the reasons as to why they should be important to your organization.
A Sales Process
When you think of sales, the typical sales role that comes to mind is that of a used cars salesman. However, if you dig deeper into the meaning of sales - it is essentially the ability to learn and understand an area of opportunity, then educate the other party of the benefits and value that can be had from the relationship. Building a partnership is no different. To effectively establish a partnership, the leadership team needs to be aligned with selling the organization's vision. It is important for this vision to be mutually valuable to all parties involved in a potential partnership. Developing a process of consistently connecting with other providers in your area and explaining your vision is an excellent foundation for identifying organizations that may be aligned for a partnership.
Set Clearly Defined Goals
As with any initiative for an organization, clearly defining the goals or desired outcomes is the first step to attaining results. With an increasing workload and limited amount of resources, determining the goals for your partnerships prior to investing time and resources is critical to long term success. Some of the best examples of clearly defined goals are ACOs. Their goals are clear: to improve the overall quality of patient care and quantify reimbursement savings across the organization. Clarity is critical for your organization's goals in relation to partnerships. This is an important message for organizations that currently do not have partnerships. Look for opportunities in which mutual value can be gained for every entity involved.
When partnerships are effectively established, all organizations should gain value. If done correctly, results should be greater than the sum of their parts. This is one reason why partnerships are critically important for healthcare organizations to thrive in the coming years. Aggressive regulatory changes, larger volume of aging population, quickly advancing technologies - these are all reasons as to why leveraging partners is critical for the success of your organization. There is a reason why there is strength in numbers, it enables your organization not only to survive a tyraid of changes in a short period of time, but to thrive.
