More and more, smaller health institutions are asking themselves a fundamental question: can we thrive as a stand-alone organization in the future? Recognizing the unique dynamic this is creating for executives, the Health Care Advisory Board is offering an expanded portfolio of resources to tackle this question.

See our resources for: Community Hospitals | Critical Access Hospitals

For community hospitals:

1. Research Report: Minimizing Labor Expense Growth at Community Hospitals
2. Research Report: Minimizing Care Variation at Community Hospitals
3. Executive Research Briefing: Community Hospital Physician Employment
4. Tool: The Community Hospital Benchmark Generator
5. Infographic: Discover your community hospital advantage
6. Executive Research Briefing: Community Hospital Advantage

1. Minimizing Labor Expense Growth at Community Hospitals

This research report diagnoses the key drivers behind rising labor expense at community hospitals. It also provides guidance for deploying a sustainable workforce at community hospitals using a two-part strategy:

1. Refining current labor strategies

2. Facilitating long-term sustainability

Download the report

2. Minimizing Care Variation at Community Hospitals

Leaders who aspire to continue operating independently need to protect their margins to maintain their financial viability. The ability to reliably deliver low-cost and high-quality inpatient care is becoming an increasingly important part of the margin management playbook.

This research report outlines opportunities for small, standalone hospitals to control enterprise costs by reducing care variation and profiles three community hospitals with effective care variation reduction strategies.

Read the report

3. Community Hospital Physician Employment

Review six attributes of effective physician employment and explore specific examples from medical groups at independent community hospitals:

1. Create a common culture

2. Foster the partnership

3. Formalize physician control

4. Extend performance enhancing tools

5. Leverage transparency

6. Align individual behavior with strategy

Download the briefing

4. The Community Hospital Benchmark Generator

Our Hospital Benchmark Generator gives you instant access to Medicare benchmarks for financial, operational, and quality data. This custom version of the tool provides a pre-populated cohort of community hospitals for easy benchmarking against other small, independent facilities. For the purposes of this cohort, a community hospital is defined as an independent, short-term acute care facility with 25-400 beds.

Use the tool

5. Discover your community hospital advantage

Many community hospitals are questioning whether they can survive the transition to value, but they actually have many potential competitive advantages—such as modest cost structure, strategic agility, and proximity to consumers—that can provide superior value to the market.

Check out the infographic to learn more about those advantages and how to use them to secure your hospital's future sustainability and success.

View the infographic

6. The Community Hospital Advantage

This report goes into detail about seven tactics that you can use lead your organization through this period of market transition into a thriving future:

1. Focus on outpatient growth

2. Embrace principled partnerships

3. Determine your costs and cut waste

4. Prepare for population health with limited investment

5. Creatively engage and enhance physician workforce

6. Reach out to consumers and independent providers

7. If you need to sell, get ahead of the market

Download the briefing

For critical access hospitals:

1. Research Report: Critical Access Hospitals: Challenges and Opportunities
2. Tool:The Critical Access Hospital Benchmark Generator

1. Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs): Challenges and Opportunities

Hospitals in rural and remote areas are especially sensitive to changes in the health care landscape. To thrive, CAH leaders must define the set of needs they will satisfy for their communities, build strong relationships with tertiary providers, invest in innovative care models to reduce labor demand, and maximize operating efficiency.

Download the briefing

2. The Critical Access Hospital Benchmark Generator

Our Hospital Benchmark Generator gives you instant access to Medicare benchmarks for financial, operational, and quality data. This customizable version of the tool provides comparisons specifically for CAHs. You can easily configure your desired cohort and view the benchmarks (in deciles) alongside your organization's specific data (displayed in red).

Use the tool