Answered Questions

Hello!

I'm guessing that you are in BA507. If not, the process will still be the same. This week you are looking for information about the industry that CHOA is a part of.

First, we identify the industry by name. The best place to start is the annual report and company profile information you gathered last week, which tell you what the business world calls the industry that CHOA is part of. For example, for that assignment you probably linked to the Business LibGuide, clicked on the Business Articles Tab, and clicked on MarketLine Advantage. Searching Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, you would have found the company profile. Clicking on the company profile, you saw the industry described as Healthcare Facilities and Providers > Acute Care and Hospitals. So we need reports on acute care and hospital providers (or some similar wording). Sometimes Marketline has an industry report you can use, but not this time.

My next stop is eStatement Studies, which is also in the list of resources on the Business Articles Tab. Clicking to eStatement, I tried searching the industry in the right-side search box, but got no results because I didn't have the name exactly correct. Then I tried the left box. I clicked Sort by Sector under the box first, then dropped down Select, and browsed the list until I found the right sector, Healthcare and Social Assistance. A sector is a group of related industries. I clicked on Healthcare and Social Assistance and clicked Go. This brought up a list of all of the industries in that sector. Scrolling through the list, I found General Medical and Surgical Hospitals (Non-Profit). Based on the detailed description, this is what eStatement calls CHOA's industry. Clicking the NAICS code beside the name, 622110N, will take you to a report containing lots of financial information on the industry.

It's nice to have financial data, but a qualitative analysis done by an expert is also really helpful. Now that I have the industry names and the NAICS code, I can search further. We've already ruled out MarketLine, the first choice. My second choice is ABI/Inform (in the list of resources on the Business Articles Tab). I found nothing there. The third choice is Business Source Complete, also linked on the Business Articles Tab. Clicking Business Source Complete takes me to the advanced search. I can scroll down and plug in the NAICS industry code, 622110. (You might notice that I dropped the "N" from the code - it didn't work here.) Before clicking search, I limited my results to Publication Type - Industry Profile. Click search. The results include two reports on the MEDICAL & SURGICAL HOSPITALS INDUSTRY (NAICS 62211) in the U.S. One is an Industry report and the other is a Capital and Expenses report. the Industry report is very long, but the meat begins on p.28.

To complete the analysis, you will also have to research articles about the industry. ABI/Inform and Business Source complete are the best two sources. Searching "hospital industry" AND challenges in ABI/Inform, for example, yields

• Mundy, R. (2013). Current industry trends affect hospital valuations. Valuation Strategies, 16(4), 18-23,46. Retrieved from http://store.tax.thomsonreuters.com/accounting/Tax/Valuation-Strategies/p/100200778 
• Al-Amin, M. (2012). The general NFP hospital model. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 71(1), 37. doi: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.2011.00815.x
  

Focus on scholarly and trade articles from the past few years. If you need help searching, review our video.

Thanks for asking a librarian.