Health Care Centre for the Homeless

Karthik Arumugham [1311299]

SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

HCCH is a non-profit organization

HCCH is one of the several federally and state funded healthcare center.
HCCH is in the Medicare/Medicaid program, therefore their receivables are guaranteed.
Location is in congruence with their mission: serving the homeless, uninsured and underinsured.
Operated as a multi-disciplinary health center. HCCH provides a range of health related services,
including primary care, pediatric care, dentistry, social, medical and behavioral health, vision care and
tuberculosis management.
6) Operated a mobile unit. Going to the patient instead of the patient comes to you is a win-win situation,
even for the most reluctant and potential patient.
7) Operate a centralized location under one roof.
8) Affiliated and /or partnered with other care providers, civic, and academic institutions.
9) Ability to conduct fund- raising events
10) A good organizational structure with staffing.
11) Low staffing expenditures, because HCCH recruits a great number of highly qualified volunteers such as
doctors and medical students.
12) Provide in-house pharmacy services.
13) Newly expanded state of the art medical examination room
14) Serving the homeless create a niche as well a barrier for potential competitors.
Weakness:
1) Name association with the Coalition for the Homeless, which may implying inferior service, or someone
or a family which share all the characteristics with the homeless population may be hesitant to seek
medical care.
2) Inability to collect co-payments
3) Inability to do follow-up consistently
4) Inability to conduct preventive medicine
5) Accounts payable is accrual- based only.
6) Poor record keeping and accounting reporting.
7) Misuse or underuse of their highly qualified volunteers base, as well their newly acquired computer
system.
8) Human resources department need some housekeeping or complete overhaul.
9) Operate in a chaotic organizational structure, need more accountabilities through the creation of
departments and or cost centers.
10) Limited purchasing power because their receivables are accrual-based only.
11) Diluted Valuation.
Opportunities:
1) Potential infusion of fresh funds through Govt. schemes
2) Their core clientele base is increasing exponentially
3) Because of their fund-raising activities, HCCH is unknowingly promoting their name with corporate
America, with company such as The Walt Disney Corp, the McCormick Foundations, Lens Crafters,
among others.
4) Taking a contrarian view here, because there will always be social inequality, therefore their core
clientele will never dried.
5) May benefit from current legislative effects where others may suffer or fail.
Project and Portfolio Management

Health Care Centre for the Homeless

Karthik Arumugham [1311299]

6) Planned expansion is envisioned in the built-environment.

7) Their incidental Navigator project is both a star and cash cow.
Threats:
1) Their inherent association with the Coalition For the Homeless creates a confusion with their name,
mission and brand
2) A potential inability to serve their base because of understaffing.
3) The inability to expand into the general population and collect their co-payments
4) Name may be implying poor service.
5) Geographic coverage: may cause quick turnover of staff due to stress
6) Because of the clientele core, interactions between providers of care and recipients could be chaotic.
7) Currents financial and regulatory conditions may limit planned expansion. (Inability to collect
fundraising funds or to receive grants.)

Situation Analysis:
Administratively the Health Care Center for the Homeless and its medical arm, the Orange Blossom Family
Health Center, is a bonafide non-profit organization. HCCH as it is referred here is one of the few healthcare
providers in greater Orlando that is recognized and received funds at the federal level and the state level.
According to their 2009 annual report, HCCH operated with an annual revenue of $5, 368.762.00 and a total of
expenses of $ 5, 309,757 which resulted in net profit of $ 58,995.00 ,but is reported in the financial statement as
increase in net assets, possible because of their not for profit status.
Additionally, because of their patient advocacy program, known as Patient Advocacy Program PAP for which
HCCH received prescription deliveries directly from various pharmaceutical companies which have a street
value of $ 2 million dollars. However, the notation of this amount is listed in the detailed analysis of the annual
report but not in the actual balance sheet. For reasons unknown to the outsiders the $2 million dollars were not
included in their balance sheet. This should have included because it represents a great sum vis--vis their
annual budget of $5 million plus operation, because without this charitable assistance, HCCC or their 2000
clients (very unlikely) who directly received such benefits would have to absorb it.
There is a great need for housekeeping work in the human resources department, because HCCH is currently
staffed with 15 board members, and 12 known salaried staff , hence a ratio of 1.4 to 1, by default creating an
atmosphere of creative strategic planning stagnation. Moreover, instead of using their part time staff seasonably
and on an ad hoc basis, HCCH should plan to hire a fixed number of salaried part-time staff members and must
be include in their staffing count as well in their budget. The service of their highly professionally trained
volunteered staff who are not board member should have a monetary value such as good will, because without
their valuable assistance , more staff would have been required or the inability to serve certain cohort members.
The ability to create their two most fabled programs, the HOPE and the Navigator program respectively, and
with respect to the latter, it may represent a blueprint how to transit from the image of serving only the
homeless to a more mainstream population.
There appears to be something wrong with HCCH managerial accounting process, albeit not malicious. It is
more endemic than a trend, they had a total of 32,056 documented medical encounters but 28,952 were
accounted for and reported in the annual report. They failed to account for 3114 encounters; they did the same
omission in their PAP initiative. Intentional or oversight, the bottom line these two factor alone will have
doubled the annual revenue of HCCH. To put this in perspective, in their annual report, HCCH has stated that
they have received medication gratuities worth $ 2 million for 2000 patients which represent $ 1000 per patient.
Hence by omitting 3114 patients there is a potential loss of $ 3,114,000 in prescription cost alone, if these
clients needed or received medication, using the in- kind assumption that they too were in need of medications.
This figure does not include the cost of treatment or medical care this group of 3,114 patients or medical
Project and Portfolio Management

Health Care Centre for the Homeless

Karthik Arumugham [1311299]

encounters, which is another unreported amount of potential accrual revenue. This kind of negligence or
oversight dilute the value the organization in the overall, this reduce they capitalization, compromised their
standing vis--vis a prospective entrant in their niche , reduced their purchasing power and as well credit
because of the apparent lower volume. This would have never occurred in a for profit organization, because of
the impending tax consequences alone. Based in this analysis, it is very possible that HCCN is operating at a
loss because on these trends alone. Also iis not known if the salary paid to the part-time staff is included in any
homogeneous expense account, since the exact number of part-time employees is not mentioned, and probably
this expenditure is omitted.
Beside their organizational another problem with HCCH is name confusion, which represents both an
opportunity and a treat. If a threat is big enough, you will work to find a counter-solution to the problem. It is
when threat happen you have to look closer at your business model and make the necessary changes. For
example social networking is a big threat, a many people are now seeing the problem connected with the use of
these sites as well as words of mouth. The saying there is no bad publicity conceptually is not working well
in the case of HCCH because to some potential client the word homeless denotes poor accountability and
service. Health care can be an abstract subject, but there could be some elements of tangibility depending on the
provider. Current understanding of how people represent information in memory provides a starting point for
developing a competition-based positioning strategy. One way information about a brand is stored in memory is
in terms of natural categories.
The board should accept the consultant recommendations to change their name legally into a corporate name for
legal and related activities such as grant application and licensing and a business name for daily use. In
changing their name into two distinct entities without changing or abandoning their mission and without
apparent deficits, in fact this model will create synergy and congruency for their organizational structure by
i. Gradually erasing the name confusion
ii. Enforcing or rebranding the HCCH name and logo and
iii. Possibly increased their clientele base once they dropped the word family, implying that individuals are
welcome as well.

Driving re-branding through strategic stages of Kotters model:

Establish a sense of urgency by conducting a SWOT analysis and identify the problem and need to be
fixed now. As HCCH experienced growth within the organization, there is a need to update their
identity.
The new brand change is a process driven, long-term proposition. It is not a deliverable. Form a
powerful guiding coalition by getting the support of the key stakeholders such as the senior leadership
participation and involvement throughout the process of internal branding. It cant be delegated to the
managers to drive it. There should be a leadership council with representatives from all sections of the
company. These people are not there to create the brand, but to be emissaries. They must be passionate
people who care about their brand and recognize the benefits of it.
Create a vision for the new brand change as to what the new brand needs to achieve in the years to
come.
Communicate the vision for the new brand through various sources to various stakeholders.
Communications can take the form of emails, websites, workshops and presentations, but the role of
managers is central to the successful acceptance of a new brand. This is the time to be in front of
employees. It can be costly in terms of time. Leaders are paid to tell the story and get the staff
motivated.
The internal employees can be addressed through meetings, emails, etc to give them the confidence and
keep them engaged. Employees mustn't feel like they are losing their identity for no reason. Respectfully
explain the employees why theyre moving to a new brand.

Project and Portfolio Management

Health Care Centre for the Homeless

Karthik Arumugham [1311299]

The external community can be communicated through ad campaigns, newsletters, social media, etc.
Demonstrate to their current and potential patients that are a place where health and hope can thrive.
Caring is at the root of everything that they do.
HCCH could use their highly successful navigator program to transit from purely a homeless or
underserved healthcare provider to serve the general population as well. This transition can be achieved
by offering other services in addition to the health care, including educational classes in the evening, day
care for both the young and the old, and spaces where people can gather for example, school board or
chamber of commerce hearings.
Also, HCCH should hold community meetings in their own where some of their highly underused staff
should try to educate the community about chronic diseases and explain how people can get help, in
fact, HCCH will change the focus from health care to health, hence achieving another elusive goal that
is preventive medicine.
Empower others to act on the vision by enabling them with the right resources to communicate the
change.
Celebrate short-term wins with milestone achievement. This could be as simple as a team completing a
task of communicating the values and the meaning of the new brand through various means such as
outbound activities, etc. There must be remuneration and rewards for reinforcing the new brand identity
and encouraging change in employee behavior to fit the new brand. Tie performance management into
the brand. Recognition and rewards must be relevant.
Consider assigning dedicated people to internal change communication and internal branding. Let them
create a sense of such urgency that staff see no alternative to change.

Project and Portfolio Management