A shared service-category map
When it may fit: Teams use different category definitions.
Evidence needed: Agreement between strategy, finance and operations.
Trade-off: Agreement takes time; start with the top few services.
Hospital Intelligence Brief
How to Combine Market Data With Financial and Operational Evidence
Market data says where demand is. Financial data says what it is worth. Operational data says whether you can serve it. Decisions need all three.
1. The business problem
How do you turn a market observation into a decision you can defend?
Market, financial and operational data usually live in different places and are owned by different teams. The strategy group sees share. Finance sees margin. Operations sees capacity. Each is looking at part of the same question, and conclusions drawn from one alone tend to be fragile.
This matters because the questions that drive investment (is demand real, would it pay, can we deliver) can only be answered together.
2. What the evidence can reveal
A joined-up view answers three questions in order:
- Calculated Demand: is there volume, and are we sharing in it? (market data)
- Information gap Value: what does that volume pay and cost? (financial data)
- Information gap Capability: can we staff, house and deliver it with quality? (operational data)
Verified fact Public data covers the first. The second and third come from the hospital’s own systems, which is why the combination is rarely done and why it is valuable when it is.
3. Investigate the problem
The synthetic market in this experience illustrates the first question only. Illustrative Our share fell from 27.7% to 26.4%. In Obstetrics our discharges fell 13.5%; in Orthopedics 3.2%.
Calculated Suppose finance showed that Orthopedics earns a strong contribution per case and operations showed the department has spare capacity. Then losing share there is worth urgent attention. If instead Orthopedics earns a thin contribution and is at capacity, losing share could be acceptable or even helpful. The market data is the same. The decision is opposite.
Information gap The experience will not tell you which case you are in, and neither will public data. Its panels end with “what is missing” precisely because that is the work remaining. A good practice is to attach a financial and an operational question to every market finding before it reaches leadership.
4. Explore the interactive experience
Investigate it yourself.
Hospital Market Explorer: a market dashboard comparing a five-hospital market by service category, an outmigration capture scenario, evidence-linked answers from APIS, and a sample brief, all on synthetic data.
The experience below uses a synthetic five-hospital market built to look like public discharge data. It is not New York data, or data for any real market, and every figure is illustrative. The counts are discharges, not dollars.
- Select Orthopedics. Write down what finance and operations would each need to say before you acted on the share loss.
- Ask APIS what additional information would help validate your reading.
- Generate the brief and use its “what this data cannot establish” list as the financial and operational question list.
5. Evaluate possible solutions
Joining the three views is a process change as much as an analysis. These are ways to do it.
6. What leadership should do next
Questions to answer
- For each market finding, what is the value and capability question?
- Who owns each answer?
- Do we use the same categories?
- What decision will this inform?
Data to gather
- Market data by service
- Contribution per case by service
- Capacity and staffing by service
- A shared definitions document
Steps to take
- Map service categories across teams.
- Attach financial and operational questions to findings.
- Review jointly.
- Log the evidence behind decisions.
7. Engage Two Pillars
Explore Your Hospital’s Opportunities
Two Pillars can help hospital leadership investigate market, financial, operational, and strategic questions using relevant organizational data, public information, and a structured assessment process. A good first step is a market-to-margin assessment that joins your market view with financial and operational evidence for the services that matter most.
Sources and data notes
- The organization, its figures, and every number in this article and its interactive experience are synthetic and illustrative. They are not real data, a benchmark, or a forecast.
- New York State Department of Health, SPARCS: www.health.ny.gov/statistics/sparcs/ — information on the Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System and its public-use data files.
- CMS, Cost Reports: www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/cost-reports — public information on the annual cost reports that Medicare-participating hospitals file.
- Reviewed October 2026. This article describes an approach to investigation. It does not replace review by qualified professionals.