Around the end of December I had someone reach out to me to provide some services for their hospital. It sounded really good and I was pretty enthusiastic for the opportunity, as it would have been a great financial start to the year. After I sent the proposal I heard nothing, and finally after 3 weeks I contacted the CFO, who was interim. He responded that they decided to do the work internally and thanked me for the proposal.


by Jasoon via Flickr

The thing I found interesting after thinking about it is that it's not the type of work that one can just decide to do internally. In essence, if the hospital already had the person in place who was responsible for the work then they wouldn't have called me to begin with, but to suddenly say they were going to do it internally... nope, I wasn't buying that one. Nothing I could do at that point but I knew there had to be something amiss.

Turns out I was correct. The hospital was in financial distress and, unfortunately, just closed its doors for good a couple of weeks ago. It's too bad because it's an area that needs all the hospitals it had for its population, and now a large portion of people will have to be absorbed by the remaining facilities in the area.

I'm not saying that I could have saved the hospital, but I know I definitely could have helped. For that matter, I think these are the times when facilities need to reach out to consultants for help, before things are at a critical mass. Without knowing everything this hospital was going through, my bet is that I could have increased their revenue by at least 50 to 75%, if not more, based on the fact that I know they didn't have anyone already doing the kind of work that I provide services for. I'm also betting I know at least 3 or 4 other consultants that I've worked with in the past in addressing these types of issues in the past who could have gone in and worked with the administration there to help turn things around.

Does this type of thing always work? It always does at least temporarily. I know that when I did one of my consulting gigs that lasted over a year and helped them increase their daily revenue by more than 100% that they had turned the corner and were profitable for the first time in a decade; no, I wasn't the only one working on that project.

I also know that in the last two years, which was about 4 years after I and most of the other consultants were gone, that hospital has once again reversed fortunes for the worst, based on the fact that they hired a lot of people to replace many of the positions consultants were holding that were "good enough" to put bodies into position that needed more than that, and that's led to multiple layoffs and the closing of the nursing home, with more coming.

No matter what it is you do, or what your business is, if you know things aren't going great or on the right path don't wait until it's almost too late to ask for help and assistance. If you feel you're capable and will reverse things, then fine. It's never a bad thing to look outside for help; it could save everyone and everything in the end.