The economics of the health care industry are changing rapidly, and these changes mean that many health care and therapeutic facilities now have a financial incentive to keep people healthy and fit. Under traditional health care, providers are paid a fee for each service they perform. Under this system there is no financial incentive for to promote health and fitness.
But the picture of health care is changing due to demographic shifts and funding requirements. Treating patients with shorter hospital stays, and the move toward preventative medicine means the ways our health care facilities operate and are funded will go through dramatic alterations. This may create an environment in which a health care facilities fiscal fitness is dependent partly on the physical fitness of its patients.
This renewed interest of the health care industry in health and fitness may present an opportunity for the fitness centre to partner with local health care facilities to expand their market and deliver a more comprehensive range of programs and services to their customers.
While in Canada the debate over what our health care system should or should not be, and do, continues, there are some American examples we may want to consider. While we do not wish to eliminate the concept of universal care for all regardless of income there are certain steps that could be taken which would enhance the level of health care for our citizens, while creating potential new streams of revenue.
Over the past decade, research (typically conducted in corporate fitness programs) has repeatedly demonstrated that health and fitness strategies can help contain medical costs. Now health care facilities are taking note of these results and looking for ways to implement a fitness strategy. To demonstrate the momentum of this trend, consider that more than 250 US hospitals currently operate fitness centres, with a membership in excess of 250,000 people.
The popularity of these centres among consumers and health care professionals isn't due solely to preventive care either. The health care community is discovering that structured, personalized lifestyle programs, combined with proper medical care, can extend a patient's care and will speed up the recovery process for many injuries and illnesses. The key is lifestyle management and conditioning under the proper supervision, which can sometimes be jeopardized by managed care plans that limit therapeutic visits. To overcome this obstacle, many health care providers are combining traditional therapy with exercise and lifestyle programming at a fitness centre. Despite many differences in the way they operate health care facilities and fitness centres can, and do, successfully partner together. As a result, fitness centres are gaining unique advantages they did not have before.
People who shy away from commercial fitness centres tend to be older than the typical member, and their health care views are often highly traditional. In other words they see the local hospital or health care facility and health care provider as the primary, perhaps the only, authority on health care. These people also see health care facilities as mainstays of the community; they know a local hospital will be there over the long haul, but they are not always as certain about the traditional fitness centre. By affiliating with a health care facility, a fitness centre can take advantage of that image equity, opening itself to an entirely new and lucrative market. Hospitals provide instant credibility, by way of association.
Partnerships can create a win-win situation for both parties. Fitness centres provide health care facilities with an extension into the community for promoting their services, and health care facilities can expand the market scope and image of fitness centres. Partnering can be a new way to expand market penetration with out bearing the full expense of traditional expansion.
Should it be decided that a relationship with a local health care facility is worth exploring, what's next? Partnering with a local health care facility is a three-step process, involving planning, development and implementation.
As with any critical business decision you make for your fitness centre, the key to success is planning. The foundation of good planning is to identify critical issues to be addressed. Important issues for partnering with a health care facility include:
Compatibility. Many partnerships fail because of a simple lack of shared vision. It is critical that both parties have common goals and philosophies.
Synergy. What complimentary strengths of your organizations will make the partnership more valuable than the sum of its parts? Where are there voids in your combined resources? How will those voids be filled?
Control. Who will be in control of what - an obvious, yet difficult question to ask and answer early on. If common ground cannot be found on this issue, the partnership will fail.
Success. How does each organization define success? What if the health care facilities primary interest is community outreach and yours is business growth and profitability?
The Marketplace. Is there a market for your shared vision, making it financially feasible? If a new facility is to be built, where should it be located? On-site at the health care facility, or at another site? What about competition? Will your shared vision differentiate your partnership to provide consumers with something they want but are not getting elsewhere, i.e. personal training, medically-based fitness and wellness programming, rehabilitation and sports medicine services, and others you have not even thought of?
Finance. How will the investment be financed? Who will be responsible for any losses? How will profits be divided?
So how does a fitness centre address these and other important issues related to the partnership and market? The answer is : Address the issue with help from the local health care facility. Issues of shared vision and compatibility are impossible to address without the willing cooperation of the partner. Resolving these issues up front will help ensure the partnership starts strong and remains mutually beneficial over the long haul.
The goal of this stage is to determine how the health care-based fitness centre can provide the most benefit to the community by meeting the needs of the market place. Here is where the synergy of the partnership really shines. Fitness centres and health care facilities have disparate, but highly compatible, strengths. Fitness centres have more retail experience, while health care facilities deliver credibility and can be strong in the area of market research. These skills can combine to create an entity better equipped to provide the community the type of services required.
Most health care facilities do not understand the retail perspective, due the fact that until recently cost was not really factored into the health care equation. Today the potential exists for that to change as the health care industry is forced to evaluate is role and how society will fund the required services. The only "business unit" within a health care facility that is currently geared to be retail oriented would be a health care based fitness centre. Bringing in an outside, commercial fitness centre's talents and experience can increase the success of a health care-based organization.
While the fitness centre has much to offer the hospital, it has much to gain as well. Commercial fitness centres, long driven by the needs, desires and preferences of the retail consumer are better in tune to provide assistance in servicing in this age of customer demand. In an age when time is as much of an influence on consumer buying decisions as price or quality, fitness centres that successfully market themselves as a health care facility affiliate can create a "one-stop shop," if you will for medically-based, fitness programs. The new element of convenience, adding to the fitness centre's arsenal of consumer benefits, can create a strong presence in the market place.
Once development issues have been resolved, it is time to move on to the actual implementation of the health care-based fitness centre. There are a myriad of business operational issues to address, including information systems, staffing, marketing/advertising, membership recruitment and management procedures , and so on. A primary consideration is matching existing skill sets to particular tasks. Health care facilities for example, may have more sophisticated information systems in place, whereas fitness centres may be more experienced in retail advertising or pro-shop operations.
By now you may be wondering if you could be creating the commercial fitness industry's own worst enemy. A health care facility, with public purse funding, could have deep pockets. The truth is to be practical the health care-based fitness centre cannot be fund with public dollars, rather it must be a separate cost and profit centre. If anything, these centres should actually increase the size of the market that the fitness industry serves. By raising the health consciousness of the community, health care-based fitness centres encourage more people to become members of the organizations of their choice. Everyone wins, including the patients.
The fitness industry is poised to realize the benefits of the collective shift toward fitness and wellness in the health care community. It has become good fiscal policy to support preventative care and health care facility fitness centres could become a viable part of an overall strategy. What could have been considered odd just a few years ago, suddenly is making more sense. Health care facility and fitness centre partnerships should work. Has the time for them come?
Dave Parker is an Associate Writer with Cornerstones Magazine