Hey guys! I’m back with another report of the day! I got up today around 6:45 to shower and eat breakfast. We left around 8:00 to head to Austral University and Hospital. It was about an hour long ride, plus we bumped into some traffic. When we arrived, we visited the hospital first and received a lecture from the Chairman and Board Member of Austral. He told us some really interesting facts about the financial issues and management details of Austral. I also loved how he mentioned that the entity of Austral focuses on efficiency and delivery just like any other business would promote. Building off of that, it was also incredibly interesting to me that Austral operates like a company that manages a university, a hospital, an insurance, and other several ambulatory clinics within a 15 mile distance from the headquartered hospital. The rest of the business majors and myself really loved hearing about how a private firm such as the entire entity of Austral executes certain strategic situations. It was also clear that the delivery models of Austral and Swiss Medical Group differ in many ways. For starters, in the aggregate Swiss Medical does not manage and own a university. Rather, it oversees several hospitals and facilities across the area. This affects the delivery model due to the fact that Swiss Medical only focuses on their private hospitals and insurance and therefore have earmarked specific resources to just those two focuses. In addition, Austral follows a 5 Focus Model, which encompasses and centers around patient centered care, patient and family care along with employee care, quality and safety, efficiency, and innovation. For Austral, value based healthcare is the most important element of the entity. To add, Austral handles wait time problems by increasing their prices. This seemed strange to me. Austral follows an equation for delivering effective, meaningful healthcare while operating at a profit that is known as patients experience divided by costs. The value of this equation increases when you decrease the total costs in addition to increasing patient quality experience. To add, Swiss Medical operates as a client of Austral, which can be considered a “difference” as well in general. Austral also looks to increase prices at the same time as increasing positive patient experiences. Austral’s business is clinical management. As for some similarities, Swiss Medical and Austral are both private firms. To add, they both operate hospitals and insurance entities. They also both believe that strategic paths drive operations. 

After visiting the hospital, we took a stroll and saw a facility centered around people who suffer from chronic diseases and will not be living for much longer. It was very hard for me to go inside because the environment was sad and I just felt uncomfortable. Afterwards, we had some time to visit the university and talk to some students that go to Austral. We did a case study about a certain situation that we theoretically would face. It was really fun! We also had empanadas for lunch! That’s all for now guys!