EXPANDING

THE MARKET
for WakeMed Children’s

WakeMed Children’s, a leading community health system, faced competitive pressures

from several large academic health centers expanding into its region. Increased
competition could result in lower market share, loss of revenue and increased intensity
to attract and maintain patients. Accenture was engaged to help develop and implement
a five-year strategic plan to improve growth in community healthcare, differentiate
WakeMed and “win in the market.”

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 CLIENT PROFILE
WakeMed Children’s is a leading pediatric hospital with associated emergency outpatient services
and part of the largest health system in Wake County, North Carolina. Their facilities and services
provide healthcare for the entire community. WakeMed Children’s has embarked on a journey
to transition from an acute-focused hospital to a pediatric community health system which will
deliver a broader suite of healthcare services including:

• Expansion of Subspecialties & Programs • Virtual Care

• Child Life & Family Centered Services • Surgical Services
• Community Partnerships • General Children’s Hospital and
• Rehabilitation Programs Community Physicians
• Primary and Urgent Care

It is predicted that the future of healthcare will be consumer oriented and health systems
will have to adapt to provide a holistic/seamless approach to patient care.

OPPORTUNITY
With new competition entering the market, WakeMed wanted to better understand new growth
opportunities, competitively differentiate themselves in the market and better meet the needs of
the community. The hospital embarked on a five-year strategic plan to effectively transition from
an acute-focused pediatric hospital to a children’s community health system. The acute focus
was centered around WakeMed’s pediatric and neonatal intensive care units while the shift to a
community health system would create a seamless patient and family centered ecosystem that
better supports the health needs of the community across the care continuum.

To accomplish these goals WakeMed needed solutions that would address their current
business challenges:

01 Future growth for the children’s hospital

02 Market differentiation

03 Brand Awareness

04 Seamless care across the ecosystem

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 Opportunities included:

• Understanding the current state of pediatric services in the Raleigh

metropolitan area including inpatient, primary care footprint, affiliation
types and care saturation.

• Assessing future market demands (five - ten years) for services and
physicians based on population growth, outpatient shifts, practice
changes and new care models.

• Analyzing patient experience provider benchmark data to identify patient

desires and preferences.

• Determining opportunities for expansion, consumer centricity, priority

regions and pain points that should be addressed.

WakeMed asked Accenture to help produce a strategy based on five key goals and to create
a vision for growing their brand and its footprint over the next five years.

Immediate Goals
STRENGTHEN THE PEDIATRIC AMBULATORY NETWORK: Determine
opportunities for Pediatric Primary Care expansion, affiliation options and
strategies to capitalize on Primary Care opportunities to supplement
existing community physician practices.

CLOSE GAPS IN THE CARE ECOSYSTEM: Address care transition gaps

(i.e., pediatric, adult, community physicians, women’s health) and assess
opportunities for sub-specialties and key support services.

BUILD PEDIATRIC AWARENESS: Develop a distinct children’s brand and

optimize existing online channels (google search, patient reviews, hospital
wayfinding and navigation, etc.).

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 Long-term Goals

REMOVE ACCESS BARRIERS: Remove records requirements, standardize

physician templates and streamline scheduling protocols to enable direct
scheduling (and eventually self-scheduling).

IMPROVE COMMUNICATIONS PLATFORMS: Leverage Technology to use as

an engagement platform and to increase enrollment. Improve awareness and
use of new technologies and tools to improve connection with physicians.

SOLUTION
The client asked Accenture to build a customized growth model to help define the pediatric vision
and strategy, inventory opportunities and develop a roadmap for a five-year market expansion plan.
Accenture also led a strategy retreat which focused on the following components:

• Market trends and leading practices in pediatric health systems.

• Competitive positioning relative to key competitors

and competitive advantages.

• Creation of an executable vision that includes high-level

priorities for the future strategy.

To help develop an agile growth strategy, Accenture embarked on a robust strategic planning
process over the course of six weeks to determine best outcomes for WakeMed’s five-year plan.
Using Accenture technology, consumer survey data and a customized Strategic Insights Model,
WakeMed was able to identify growth opportunities and consumer demands in the Raleigh
Durham market.

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 The planning process included:

5 YEARS OF MARKET Market Dynamics

Assessment of market share, patient
AND OUTPATIENT growth and procedure growth to
DATA ANALYZED understand market characteristics

500 CHILDREN’S Provider Benchmarks

National patient experience provider
benchmark study to identify patient
PATIENTS SURVEYED desires and preferences

61 PEOPLE
Interview Themes
Informal interviews to identify and
validate WakeMed’s market position,
INTERVIEWED strengths and weaknesses

Secret Shopper
60 CALLS Secret Shopper research to identify
patient pain points and service/
access gaps

Accenture analyzed detailed local market demographic data to identify priority regions
for current and future markets with consideration of five and ten-year reform trends across 40
groups in the General and Internal Medicine Clinical Service Category (CSC). The local data
analysis then used benchmarks that included population growth, aging and local area variation to
determine inpatient and outpatient trends. The information was then used to create a long-term
roadmap based on build, buy and affiliate options across each specified region.

Results
WakeMed was able to meet its goals by properly aligning its strategy to meet market
trends. Accenture helped define the pediatric vision, strategy and roadmap for a five
to ten-year expansion plan. The team also developed a roadshow deck that allowed the
client to market their plan and objectives to internal stakeholders over the next five years.

With a better understanding of patient trends within specified regions, WakeMed

Children’s is now able to properly align its strategy and use quantifiable metrics to
quickly move into the market. Additionally, they can use a customized strategy model to
better determine where pediatric market growth and saturation will be in the future. This
provider now understands where competition sits in the market and can better deploy
the right number of physicians to meet local demand.

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 ABOUT ACCENTURE
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