When determining growth strategies for cardiovascular and thoracic programs and services within your hospital or hospital system, it’s crucial to assess the demographic and competitive healthcare landscape of your service delivery area. Understanding the community (market) needs and determining the appropriate number of providers to support growth strategies is foundational. One approach involves utilizing specific benchmarks such as the Advisory Board for cardiovascular specialties. The applied standardized ratio per 100,000 people requires 5.5 general cardiologists, 1.8 interventional cardiologists, 1.5 CT surgeons, 0.6 electrophysiologists, 1.2 interventional radiologists, and 0.9 of a vascular surgeon. These benchmarks help forecast the demand for cardiovascular providers based on a given population size.
To determine the precise manpower needs within your health system:
- Start with evaluating the percentage of the market share you currently serve within the cardiovascular service line.
- Then determine the population within your service area and apply the aforementioned manpower ratios to calculate the total service area manpower need.
- Next, apply your market share percentage to the number of physicians needed in your service area. This calculation will provide you with the specific number of providers required to meet the current demand for cardiovascular services at your facility.
For instance, if your facility captures 65% of the service area market and includes a population of 500,000 people, you will require 17.8 general cardiologists, 5.9 interventional cardiologists, 4.9 CT surgeons, 2.0 electrophysiologists, 3.9 interventional radiologists, and 2.9 vascular surgeons.
If your goal is to grow critical cardiovascular services within the service line, you should accurately project the future market share. This will then lead to accurately projecting the number of providers required to support market growth in the future.
Identifying the gap between your current provider capacity and the strategic growth projection needs will incrementally drive your recruitment strategy. This approach ensures that your hospital or system can effectively meet the growing demand for cardiovascular and thoracic care, aligning resources and enhancing access to care. The strategic planning, recruitment and program assessment experts at Corazon can assist with helping understand market and manpower needs to remain market competitive in orthopedics, neurosciences, cardiovascular, and surgical services.
References: Advisory Board
