Cancer Treatment Centers of America: Targeted Talent Development for All Stakeholders

Topics: Strategy Integration, Governance & Structure

Contents

The Company

Cancer Treatment Centers of America was founded in 1988 by Richard J Stephenson, a merchant banker who lost his mother to cancer. He launched the organization with the goal of providing patients with the comprehensive care and advanced treatment options they wanted, needed and deserved. CTCA is headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois, outside Chicago. It has treatment centers in Chicago, Philadelphia, Tucson, Tulsa, Seattle, and soon in Atlanta. CTCA employs more than 3,400 people.

The Challenge: Maintaining Service Quality during Rapid Growth

By the summer of 2008, CTCA had achieved several years of nearly 25 percent year-over-year growth. In four years, it had gone from two hospitals to four. The company saw the need to develop and retain strong leadership, especially at the middle manager level, to build a strong talent bench and ensure that its Mother Standard® of Care continued to be practiced at the high level expected regardless of how fast or large they grew.

The Solution: Planning a Corporate University

In August of 2008, the company approved the creation of the CTCA Center for Learning. Its mission was to offer centralized online training, available 24/7, that would allow all employees to excel at their jobs, help them improve the company’s bottom line, and motivate them to provide top notch patient care. The Center for Learning was organized as colleges for Business Excellence Leadership & Cultural Excellence, and Clinical Excellence.

The Results: Patient Satisfaction, Training Attendance, and Productivity

A survey of patients during fiscal year 2010 showed significant improvements in how they rated their stay at a CTCA treatment center. All four CTCA hospitals showed an increase in scores related to satisfaction with medical staff understanding their medical condition, and overall change in hopefulness from before to after coming to CTCA

Since its launch, more than 67% of CTCA employees have logged into the CTCA learning management system and started at least one online session. All four hospitals also saw a productivity increase, enabling them to treat 500 additional patients – nearly half the patient growth expected that year.