Not often that people put the words "hospital" and "strategy" into the same sentence, much less the same phrase. But that is exactly what I've attempted to do over the last 2 months - let me recap it here:

Hospital Strategy I: First, I issued a call to arms of sorts - that strategy is not reserved for the for-profit world and corporate America. Strategy may be even more important in our healthcare market where competition continues to intensify. Passion and compassion and mission are not forgetten in strategy - they are elevated.

Hospital Strategy II: If there is one key to strategy, it is to know thyself - what is your hospital's greatest strength? it's core competency? This will tell you where to go. This thought process led Baptist Health system to a $40MM turnaround (in one year). Our guest blogger, Andrew, also chimed in on this point, defining strategy once and for all.

Hospital Strategy III: Once we know who we are, we also know who we aren't. That is the lesson we learn from those who know exactly who they aren't and are wildly successful. In this post, we used Ikea and Jiffy Lube as examples.

Hospital Strategy IV: Sometimes our competitive advantage can come from unexpected and unusual places, as we noted with Southwest Airlines. They beat out every single company in America from 1972-2002 in terms of shareholder return. Just goes to show, it's not a matter of how great your industry is, it's how sustainable your strategy is within that industry.

Hospital Strategy V: And finally, when all is said and done, a great strategy is only great if it is executed excellently. Otherwise it's just a thought or a piece of paper. In this post, we get see 11 factors that cause companies to fall short of their strategic goals from Harvard Business Review. Not surprisingly, many of these factors are soft skills, including knowing how to break through organizational silos.

So, there you have it, a short introduction of hospital strategy. What are some other important topics that never seem to get their proper coverage?