SWOT Analysis

I was extremely pleased to learn that 84 health system departments and patient units participated in our most recent ask of participating in a SWOT (that's the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing our health system). As we strive to live up to our mission, being dedicated to providing patient-centered care and improving the health and well-being of the people in the communities we serve, information that can be provided through a SWOT analysis can be invaluable.

Such information also allows us to be better prepared to achieve our organizational vision of being the best place to deliver quality care, the best place to work, the best place to transform care, the best place to reduce the total cost of care and the best place to refer patients.

There was a great deal of consistency with the strengths that were identified, which were as follows (just to name a few):

• The many clinical services that we provide
• Our approach to population health
• Being a good place to work
• Our state-of-the-art facility
• The people with whom we work 

Our weaknesses were less in number, thank goodness, but included:

• The services that we currently don't have that we are pursuing through our clinical affiliation with UPMC
• A variety of issues surrounding the ED 
• Various communication issues

The opportunities included:

• The evolving relationship with UPMC
• Our work in population health
• Enhancing the community's perception of us

As for the threats, the leaders were:

• Growing competition
• Increasing violence in the community and its potential for carryover into the hospital
• Cyber attack concerns
• Over regulation

All in all, the list was very well thought out and will go a long way in assisting us in our strategic planning efforts for the next several years.

Thank you to the many staff who participated in this very important process.