Week 1 Case Analysis
9781284200171_CASE_A Medical Group Explodes.pdf
Read the attached case, the textbook chapters, and watch the videos to be able to analyze the case.
This case describes a situation that has commonly occurred in health care. Two organizations, in this case medical groups have decided to merge. They do so not out of an initial desire to merge, but rather facing the realities of a marketplace that is changing around them. However as the descriptions suggest there may have been an initial superficial logic to the group’s attraction to each other. On one hand there is a large multi-specialty group practice, and the other partner was a good-sized primary care group that would join forces with a significantly stronger group that has many specialties to which it might refer.
However, as the board meetings suggest, as well as the description infers, these groups are different. Tensions arise in a meeting. The challenge and central question are can this partnership survive or is a divorce in the making? Consider the 7-S approach as you think about these questions:
1. Do these two groups share the same values? One must wonder if in their early merger discussion did they ever discuss what the values were that they were bringing to the table?
2. Consider the structure of the groups and how they differ in decision making? Compensation? Style? Consider how each group goes about managing their practice locations and the front-facing approach to the customer.
3. Staff- it is not easy to suggest one group is of a higher quality than the other, but their approaches to the staff seem to be different in terms of reward.
For each group to recognize it is time to change is admirable, join a larger organization or merge. Was this a rush to judgment?