For more than a century, St. Luke’s Health System has delivered compassionate healthcare to patients across the state of Idaho. As Idaho’s largest health care organization, St. Luke’s is the state’s preeminent provider with eight medical and cancer centers, along with a host of clinics dedicated to a range of quality healthcare services. Each of its hospitals is nationally recognized for excellence in patient care.
Situation
St. Luke’s operates two hospitals located in the Boise area. St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center is the system’s flagship tertiary care center located in downtown Boise. St. Luke’s Meridian Medical Center is the sister hospital servicing the Treasure Valley to the West of Boise. Both hospitals service one of the most burgeoning markets in the country. With population growth potentially outpacing capacity St. Luke’s needed to develop a facility development plan for both their primary service area and the surrounding regions.
Strategy
Wipfli worked in partnership with St. Luke’s to assess their market, develop volume projections and identify key facility needs for both the Boise and Meridian campuses. Wipfli’s analysis also served as the foundation for a comprehensive regional development strategy. This strategy would expand St. Luke’s network and competitive positioning throughout the region. Wipfli performed several key studies as part of the comprehensive market/demand and facility needs analysis:
- Provided Service Area Definition. Defined the geographic regions to further hone St. Luke’s strategic focus and minimize overlap in services from surrounding regions.
- Performed Detailed Population and Demographic Analysis. Provided a thorough dissection of the communities’ compositions, characteristics, trends and service needs.
- Completed Market Share and Competitive Analysis. Explored the competitive landscape by major service area including in/out migration trends to help formulate strategic decisions.
- Estimated Utilization Rates and Future Volume Projections. Calculated historical and future utilization rates both for inpatient and outpatient services.
- Articulated Facility Needs. Projected the resource requirements and future space needs necessary to adequately address community health care activity levels in Boise and the surrounding communities.
Benefits
Wipfli helped St. Luke’s respond facility “wise.” With Wipfli’s industry knowledge and market insights, St. Luke’s could prudently plan its services and confidently ensure its facility investment decisions were sound, pragmatic and based on realistic demand, and therefore would provide the most value. The health system was given a solid, quantitative foundation of understanding on which to base its development decisions.
Grounded in valid information, St. Luke’s moved securely toward its vision to meet the health service needs of its communities, now and into the future.
