The Healthcare Landscape
Current Pressures, Tomorrow’s Solutions
Written by Annette Kenney and Roddy Young
In recent discussions with top healthcare system leaders, we are seeing three distinct pressures in the market. We’ll go deep into one of them and welcome your thoughts, too.
What are we missing, and what pressures are you experiencing in your healthcare system?
We didn’t mention AI-enablement in the top three. Why?
Yes, there’s huge pressure among our nation’s healthcare leadership to employ AI to gain efficiencies and save dollars. Today, AI-enablement is table stakes. We start with assessing your AI readiness across your people and processes. It’s a tool that is additive to your human talent, not the reverse.
Focusing on the third pressure point above – growth drivers – we see high return on investment when teams align to clear, shared growth goals.
The key word is alignment, where data and organizational commitment support the decisions that are made and lead to effective execution.
To test your organization’s alignment we ask these diagnostic questions across four pillars:
Does your team have data that is trusted – a center of truth that can be used to collaboratively assess opportunities and monitor progress?
Are your data systems aligned to show the effectiveness of your growth strategies – marketing CRM and advertising data , call center data (including access and appointment availability), and clinic-level volume, capacity, profitability and patient experience data?
Do you measure your new-patient versus current-patient ratio to assess growth and retention efforts?
Do you know the current wait times by service line / specialty / condition?
Do you have the clinician, workforce and facility capacity to realistically accommodate growth?
Have you audited your operational / clinical / business systems to reveal process issues that negatively impact patient experience?
Do you know the patient experience score for that service and are goals aligned to continuous improvement?
Are you actively optimizing your referring clinician pipeline, and are you closing the communication loop with them post-visit?
Is your current scheduling process as frictionless as possible, helping patients and referring providers find clinicians and appointment with relative ease?
Do you have visibility into your call data, including dropped calls and call-volume-to-appointment ratios?
Is your digital infrastructure designed to seamlessly deliver online scheduling, virtual visits, and online second opinions?
Are your communications truly “full-cycle” for patient-families and referrers? (i.e., is there automated, meaningful follow-up after they leave the site of care?)
What specific service lines truly set your hospital system apart in your market, and how are they truly differentiated?
Have you mapped out and agreed upon targeted geographic and patient segmentation growth opportunities?
Building Your Path Forward
What we do know is that each organization has its own mix of talent, services, access issues, and growth opportunities. Testing our methodology against your lived experience is the first step in a journey to alignment that is both rewarding and a surprisingly positive experience.
On the reward side, the outputs can range from a stronger team purpose, role clarity, and focus on defined goals and measurable outputs.
On the positive experience side, it can mean addressing the pebbles in shoes at the local level, in ways that help your best team players do their jobs better.
Solutions can range from more effective cross-team communication and collaboration, technology enhancements, and more focused marketing and patient-intake initiatives.
The key to effective growth isn’t trying to do everything at once. The best teams are future-focused and united around execution.
Let’s Talk
We will help you overcome strategic challenges to realize the business value you seek.