Best Experienced With: Faces; Ohh La La
(Please right click on the link below to cue up the suggested background music for this evening’s part two of a three part series on Haiti and what you can do to help, outside of texting $10 to the Red Cross so they can spend $8 of that $10 on administrative fees and such. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s your money….am simply providing alternate options for your $10. Jeff Back and Rod Stewart back in “the day”.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhjHBV20ZV4
The Attic is now an “Anderson Cooper Free” zone. To purge his spirit, we shall begin with a little something from Bobby Frost, one of our poet laureates up here. This is for you Mind of Mullyites over there on the right coast. Brrrrrrrrrr……
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Take it from a native of The Land of Cleve: it will melt. Pinky promise.
Shall we begin?
My ex wife had grand plans for Chez Mulligan. Most of them involved sums of money available only to African dictators using slave labor to mine diamonds for the Dutch. Or those with unfettered access to NASA’s annual budget checkbook, brought mathematically to the power of Germany’s GDP. After “we” remodeled the bathroom in the master bedroom, I became a big fan of the scope of work.
If, when “we” remodeled the bathroom, we had an agreed upon scope of work, would probably still have a big two person tub in there instead of a 700 square foot walk in shower…………for one. Would probably have a nice glass door on there and would probably have not spent exactly six times the budget allocated. Perhaps if we had a scope of work and I did not leave The LJ for a week when the crew was here with jackhammers and visions of dollar signs in their eyes as I walked out the door with my suitcase.
Ooh, la la. Always have a written scope of work in work and in life. Always. Ohh la la.
Lots and lots of hand wringing and folks screaming at the top of their Fox News, MTV, and CNN lungs “WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING TO HELP HAITI HELP THEMSELVES”. Agreed! The next six months people need food, clothing, and medical care. Take care of that part of the Maslow pyramid. No reason we cannot collectively start thinking about Q4, 2010 and how we are going help long term. Maybe a good plan will stop MTV from broadcasting another evening of mumbling morons that could not point to Haiti on a world map. That was embarrassing. If you are MTV. The cats here in the office averted their eyes often during the MTV broadcast and coughed in an uncomfortable fashion throughout MTV’s Haiti show.
How about if we find a group of intelligent industry professionals and folks with tons of extra cash burning a hole in their pocket that are willing to spend the next ten years executing the outline below? How about if you read it and send an email with the names and email addresses of those you feel are uniquely qualified to help. Hearts as big as Alaska and bank accounts large enough to remodel any room in Chez Mulligan with my ex wife. Those are the kind of folks that we need for this ten year adventure.
After the remodeling of the bathroom incident, I choose to do nothing without a scope of work. Here is a 10,000 foot view and scope of work for creating a surgical destination location in Haiti.
Executive Summary: Pignon, Haiti as a Surgical Destination Location
Goal
Generate an additional $30,000 per month in top line revenue, minimum. This equates to an additional 40 cases per month at $750.00 per case. Grow this over five years to an additional, incremental 800 cases per year by 2013. This will allow the hospital to meet their monthly payroll and begin saving money by 2011. When we meet our 2013 goals, the hospital will be able to begin reinvesting excess capital into expansion projects. End goal is cash flow positive without any external inputs.
Definition of Success
Outside of the obvious top and bottom line revenue growth, definition of success is that every single patient and every member of their families returns to either their home in Haiti or their home in another country and say the following to their family and friends:
“We just had the most fantastic experience when ________ had his/her surgery in Pignon, Haiti! The trip was perfect and completely planned for us and we did not have to worry about a thing. Everyone we met was professional and fantastic, the medical and surgical care was top notch, and we would do it again, if the need arose. “
This is especially critical in the first two years. We will not have the opportunity to stumble. We need net promoters from day one. We will measure satisfaction daily and adjust accordingly. Should we have personnel issues, we most likely will not have time to performance manage and we need to be very clear about this from day one with everyone involved in the project.
A growing industry of any kind helps to educate, gets women into the work force and creates a source of pride. By establishing Haiti as a surgical destination location from 2010 to 2020, we accomplish these three and many other activities that will lead to self sustaining economic growth over the next one hundred years.
Plan
Pignon has the finest surgical suite in all of the Caribbean and it is underutilized. We have everything in place to be a destination location for not only Haitian patients, but from patients from the United States, the Caribbean, and Mexico.
Haitian surgeons can choose to work wherever they wish. The Charity Hospital in Pignon has done an outstanding job of creating an excellent surgical environment with modern technology, engaged teams, and on-going training. The surgical suites there are world class and air conditioned.
Goal over the next twenty four months is to put what has already been accomplished on HGH and steroids simultaneously. We are successful when:
- Within one year (April 2, 2010) most surgeons and the correct, paying patient population in Haiti knows about our hospital and the advanced surgical work that can be done here. Measurement is an additional case load of at least 20 per month (240 incremental cases between 4/15/09 and 4/01/10)
- Within two years (April 2, 2011), we are known throughout the Caribbean as a destination hospital for advanced laparoscopic and CT/CV. We have had a minimum of 30 patients fly in from outside of Haiti for an advanced surgical case from outside of Haiti between 4/15/09 and 4/01/11
- Within three years (April 2, 2012) we are well known in the Haitian communities in Miami, New York, Boston, and Montreal. Incremental cases from the United States between 4/15/09 and 4/01/12 is 890, ramping up like this:
- 2009: 10
- 2010: 30
- 2011: 250
- 2012: 600
- By 2013, we are known in Mexico City as a destination hospital for the wealthy with an experience wrapped around the visit. We are successful on this goal when we have 15 VIP patients from Mexico in 2012 and an additional 45 VIP patients from Mexico in 2013.
We will accomplish the goals above by continuing to modernize the hospital and add new advanced lines. Moreover, we will continue to make it an experience for patients so that they tell their friends about their amazing experience in Pignon. As more and more of these patients tell their friends, patients will begin asking their surgeons if they “have operating privileges in Pignon”.
We can leverage patients better than surgeons, long term because there are fewer visionary surgeons than there are patients that want great surgical outcomes and special treatment. This will be especially true for the key demographic we are after: Haitian expats. When Haitian expats start going back to Miami and telling friends and families how fantastic their care and experience was in Pignon, our expat caseload will grow exponentially. This is our sweet spot over a ten year event horizon.
Project Haiti has done an exemplary job perfecting an SOP for teams coming in to teach and for the Haitian residents and surgeons that come in for courses. We need to duplicate this for patients and their family. We need to make it effortless and smooth for patients to get to Pignon, stay in Pignon, and return home.
Step one is to look at their entire experience from a patient and their family’s point of view. How long does it take to get to Pignon? What are the barriers to getting to Pignon directly? How can we eliminate these? Who meets us at the airport? Does anyone try to sell me a time share? Do I feel safe the minute I land? Can I walk anywhere I want safely and without molestation? Where does my family stay? Can someone arrange everything from start to finish for me? Can I get a fixed price on everything? Is there a VIP area or is everyone treated the same? Can I pay extra and get better treatment?
For example, if someone were to ask me to compare and contrast Los Cabos, Mexico and La Paz, Mexico my choice would be La Paz. Reason for this is as soon as I arrive in Los Cabos I am approached virtually every minute by people wanting to sell me things on the beach and time shares. We do not want that type of atmosphere in Pignon.
The additional upside of building up the infrastructure and culture needed to create an experience for patients is we will create industry in Pignon and throughout the central plateau. We get people coming here for surgery and everything else falls into place. Charity Hospital in Pignon can become the Rochester, MN and Cleveland, OH for those that cannot afford the Mayo or the CCF.
Examples of Successful Surgical Destination
(see full sales and marketing plan)
Shared Features and Benefits
(see full sales and marketing plan)
Differentiating Features and Benefits
(see full sales and marketing plan)
Training
Just as you have trained the surgeons and hospital folks over the past years on surgical procedures, we need to train folks in town to make the patient and family experience a special one. Think Disney, American Girl, or Starbucks. We need to create a replicable, sustainable culture that is talked about when patients and their families fly back to Miami, Mexico City, etc after their surgery. Proper training is a critical success factor.
Gevy has hands on experience and does a great job here. He would be an ideal choice for a formalized concierge training program. We can put together a formal, quarterly training week, run by Gevy, where kids that want to be “guides” for patients in the future learn the skills.
We will have a formal application process, a full syllabus, required reading and a graduation at the end, provided the student meets all the requirements. Only those individuals that commit themselves to the course and graduate from the course will be able to make their living as guides. This will help to create the experience we need to grow Pignon into a destination for surgery.
From a patient perspective, we need to have a better pre-op experience. Have not seen post op and cannot opine on that experience.
We can also have a formal vetting process for the remainder of our value chain: charter airplanes and pilots, hotels, car drivers, hotels, etc. Reward is twofold. First, we know that our patients and their families will get treated the same way, every single time. Second, we will create competition among the industries to get the “Charity Hospital of Pignon” gold seal of approval. Competition makes everyone better and a rising tide lifts all boats.
Conclusion
Many cities in relatively “under developed” countries have refashioned themselves into surgical destination locations over the past thirty years. With the right team, a good plan, and a long enough event horizon we can make Pignon and the Haitian central plateau a surgical destination that drives the economy. Most important, within ten years this can be a Haitian self sustaining economy driver, needing little or no input from anyone outside of Haiti.
The Mind of Mully
I wish that Iknew all I know now
When I was younger
I wish that I knew all I know now
When I was stronger
Contact information is at tab above cleverly titled “Contact Info”. Hey Natalie I, I have three guitars here and we can play this Faces song together after our Valentine’s Day date. Will you please play the Jeff Beck part? I still suck pretty bad at guitar playing.
Mind of Mully Biz Haus Shoppe 