Johns Hopkins Hospital - Essay Example

? Portfolio Analysis s of Learning: s Portfolio Analysis Introduction JohnsHopkins Hospital, located in the United States, is well known for its research activities in biomedical and teaching facilities. Located in Maryland, the Hospital is also known to provide among the best services to patients not just in the United States but all over the world. The latest ranking place Johns Hopkins Hospital as the best hospital overall and this has been its position for many years. The hospital is recognized for several services including Geriatrics, women services, emergency services, plastic surgery, substance abuse, vascular surgery, ambulatory surgery and Oncology (Sultz, 2008). This paper is going to carry out a portfolio analysis of some of the products and services in Johns Hopkins Hospital in an effort to gauge the market position of the hospital in relation to its share market and also determine the service and products rate growth. Profitable concerns in the hospital indicate that portfolio analyses are better applicable when portfolio matrixes are used as they put into consideration profit dimensions. Such profitable dimensions are measured in terms of low or high profitability in relation to either negative or positive flow of cash or invested capital returns (Sultz, 2008). Portfolio Analysis Portfolio Analysis categorize products and services of an organization into several categories with the help of graphic matrix so as to bring out the differences among services and products of particular organization in relation to their growth rate in the market and the market share relativity. The categories include; stars, problem children and children and cash cows. Market share relativity in this analysis is viewed as being the market share occupied by the biggest rival of an organization in comparison with the market share of other organizations that fall under the same category of services and products. To determine the growth rate, the changes in gross patient services levels of revenue are measured or at times the service or population growth. The classification is in terms of low, high and medium and this is reached at by comparing the figures of such services and products to those of the national health care growth, alternative investments and prime rates (McMillan, 2011). Stars The services and products offered by the Hospital which fall under this category include; Geriatrics, oncology and women's services. These services are under this category because they have proved to have a market growth that is high as well as high market shares. The profits realized from such services are also high. These are products and services that Johns Hopkins Hospital makes the most of and gains a lot from in most situations. However, as a result of the services and products being highly profitable, most competing hospitals have settled for the same services. Such competitions put the hospital in a situation where it has to practice aggressive enhancement on these services and develop them from time to time (McMillan, 2011). This at times poses a challenge due to the difficulties in market development considering the already existing market share which is very high. This puts the hospital in another situation where it has to seek additional strategies such as related diversification and vertical integration. Thus Geriatrics, oncology and women's services happen to be the most profitable service and products offered by the hospital but still offer a number of challenges. These products stand out as representing the hospital’s best opportunities in the long-run for gaining profits and growth (Emge, 1982). Problem Children Serves offered by these hospital and fall under this category include Ambulatory Surgery, emergency services and neurosurgery. These services qualify to be in this category as they occupy market share positions that are relatively low but still manage to compete in markets whose growths are high. Such services put the hospital management to task when it comes to choosing whether to have such services strengthened by increasing its investments and developing its markets or do away with the services through liquidation, harvesting or divestiture (Emge, 1982). Cash Cows Services that fall under this category include; Substance abuse and plastic surgery. This follows the service's low market growth both in the decline and maturity PLC stages. Despite this position, the hospital still manages to earn a market share that is high through these services. These types of serves expect the hospital to continuously maintain them but call for very few new and additional resources. When cash cows are strong, the appropriate strategies the hospital makes use of include penetration, status quo, related diversification, and enhancement (Kotler, 2008). When the services get weak in some seasons, the strategies shift to harvesting, retrenchment, divestiture, and liquidation in some occasions. Such services put the hospital in a dominating market position but it’s unlikely to grow further. This leads to high profits realizations which intern attracts competitors calling for the hospital to come up with better strategies to protect its market share. This position will force the hospital to direct most of its strategies towards market dominance maintenance. Such strategies also include related diversification and vertical integration. Dogs Services under this quadrant include vascular surgery and pediatrics. This is because of their competition being slow as well as their position in the market share. Looking at some seasons in the past, the growth of these services was observed to be stagnant in the market. Such services are beneficial in that they consume very few resources in the Hospitals. Following their weak position in market share, these products are in most cases divested or at times liquidated as the hospital engages in retrenchment dramatically. Though the growth of these services is low and they also have a low market share, they still manage to gain profits for the hospital. Such services are characteristic of units that are self dominant in hospitals which intern contribute to the overall growth and profits of the hospital (Kotler, 2008). The management of the hospital is however challenged to carefully assess such services for any possibilities of increasing the market shares as well as any additions to the profits of the organization. Such assessments will enable the hospital to employ strategies like retrenchment and status core in the event that the services segments are identified as being profitable. If the assessments observes that the profits of these services is likely to decline with time, then the hospital will be forced to adjust or change its strategies and make use approaches such as divestiture and harvesting. Such products at times happen to be mangy; thus earn the hospital poor profits and low shares. In such situations, the hospital tends to be greatly affected thus forced to eliminate them. This means that the other hospitals offer better and similar services. Here, liquidation is the best strategy as these survives will be hardly asked for by patients (Kotler, 2008). Conclusion Through portfolio analysis of Johns Hopkins Hospital's products and services, the market shares and profits earned by the hospital from specific services were realized in relation to both national and regional figures. The analysis went ahead to mention the strategies used by the hospital in implementing the respective services. Johns Hopkins Hospital has been able to maintain its high quality services through concentrating more on services and products that earn the most profits and have the highest market shares. The hospital has achieved this through employing the most suitable strategies in the deployment of such services while economically using its resources. Services under cash cow like substance abuse and plastic surgery had high market shares yet the two services had a slow growth rate that was still high in comparison to other hospitals in the same category. Such services are meant to generate surplus profits that are in some cases used to enhance and support problem children and stars services. The star services such as women services and geriatrics were associated with market growths that were high as well as high market shares thus resulted to high profits for the hospital. Such services stood out as the most attractive to the hospital thus called for more resources and led to an increased hospital growth (Emge, 1982). Child problem services like emergency services with time and with proper strategies were witnessed to move to dogs services. It is the responsibility of the hospital to give priority to services that tend to stars services. Dog services such as vascular services, psychiatry and pediatrics showed both low market share and growth rates thus led to low profits and contraction strategies targets. In some cases however, the dog services go to the extend of being pushed to be slated so as to maintain its scope or try to expand beyond its scope in an effort to meet the needs of the community. References Emge, L. (1982). The Johns Hopkins Hospital. New Jersey: L. B Emge Kotler, P. (2008). Strategic Marketing for Health Care Organizations: Building A customer-Driven Health System. New Jersey: Jossey-Bass McMillan, M. (2011). Investments: Principles of Portfolio and Equity Analysis. New York: Wiley Sultz, H., (2008). Health Care USA: Understanding Its Organization and Delivery. New York: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Read More