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Case–Build It and They Will Come?Mid-Atlantic Nursing Center [MANC] is an assisted living facility and nursing home in the Mid-Atlantic area. It also provides home healthcare to clients who prefer a home environment. The company bought two facilities a couple of years ago and spent the last two years focusing on its operations and the integration of the two new facilities. With the new addition, it now has two facilities in northern Virginia and one facility in suburban Maryland, which comprise part of the Virginia – Washington D.C. – Maryland Metro area. The company does not just focus on technical knowledge and skills when it hires people; MANC makes it a priority to hire people who are a good fit with its culture and structure. As a result, it has a stable workforce with a low turnover rate. With its steady operations and financial performance, it is now ready to enter another expansion phase. Mary Ann Lewis, the CEO of the company, had a meeting earlier today with a benefactor, Mr. James Nguyen, who is interested in making an endowment in his mother’s memory. Mrs. Nguyen was a patient with Alzheimer’s who was receiving home healthcare from Mid-Atlantic Nursing Center before she passed away a few months ago. Mr. Nguyen is considering making an endowment to a healthcare facility and MANC is at the top of his short list. In exchange for an endowment to MANC, he would like MANC to open a facility to care for Vietnamese elderly people who have unique needs. Mary Ann Lewis has come in contact with some Vietnamese and knows that they are a very tight-knitcommunity. Adult children often take care of their aging parents at home. Nursing homes carry a stigma and many Vietnamese consider them a place for people who are “abandoned” by family. Older Vietnamese often have limited English and the language barrier keeps them close to home. Working-age
2 Vietnamese Americans who have full-time jobs and a family of their own find it challenging to care for their aging parents at home. Many cannot afford to hire a home health aide to care for their parents around the clock at home. While their parents reject the idea of being cared for in a facility by peoplewhom they do not understand, young Vietnamese Americans are more open to the idea of having their parents cared for in a nursing home by professionals.Mr. Nguyen expressed a strong desire to help bridge the gap in caring for Vietnamese elderly people by providing them an environment close to a community that they are familiar with, with caregivers speaking their language. He is grateful for the care his mother received at home but knows that many Vietnamese elderly people cannot afford having the personal home healthcare service that his mother had. Being a businessman, he wants to make sure that the model is sustainable and that it is the right decision to make an endowment to MANC instead of the hospital where his mother received care throughout the years. He has asked Mary Ann Lewis to draft a strategic plan and action plan to share with him when they meet again next month. Based on the strategic plan and action plan, he will consider an amount sufficient to fund this new service.Mary Ann is excited with this potential opportunity to expand the service to a section of the population that has a unique need. As a home health nurse practitioner, she understands that social determinants of health play a crucial role in people’s quality of health and life. Culture, lifestyle, language, education and socio-economic status all play parts in how people seek and receive care, how they manage their care at home and how family/community plays a role in their health.Despite of the fact that theVirginia – Washington D.C. – Maryland Metro area has the fifth largest Vietnamese population among U.S. Metropolitan areas, t here are currently no nursing homes in the immediate northern Virginia and suburban Maryland area that cater to the Vietnamese population. Entering a niche market would differentiate the company’s services and help it attract a subset of the population. Given that there is a larger Vietnamese community in northern Virginia, most notably Fairfax, Alexandria and Arlington counties, a small Vietnamese center could be open in one of these counties as a pilot. If this business model goes well, the company can replicate it with other subsets of the population, providing truly customized and personal care that these patients cannot find anywhere else. Having a benefactor who provides initial financial support to roll out this new service is an opportunity just too good to pass up. On the other hand, Mary Ann Lewis is apprehensive about this new direction. Her company has not entered a niche market and there are unknowns and uncertainty facing her company. Specifically, what is the law and regulation on offering services to a specific group that may exclude others? Is there enough demand for the Vietnamese niche market? Younger Vietnamese Americans may be open