Health systems learned how to adapt quickly and embrace change over the last few years to care for patients during the pandemic, and overcome financial challenges that followed. Now, CEOs want to upend the status quo to stay relevant.
"Since all hospitals and health systems are essentially dealing with the same problems of staffing shortages, high labor and supply costs, reimbursement issues, etc., we need to focus on the disruptive models of care delivery," Robert J. Corona, DO, CEO of Upstate University and Community Hospitals in Syracuse, N.Y., told Becker's.
Update University and Community Hospitals has opened remote multispecialty clinics, satellite cancer centers and a 200,000 square-foot wellness institute to better serve the community. Dr. Corona hopes the strategy will provide a continuity of care that includes primary, emergency and acute care as well as hospital at home, mobile medicine and robust telemedicine services. He also has several retail pharmacies to "meet patients where they are," even if that means the patients don't have to go anywhere.
"We have invested heavily in drone transportation, hospital robot supply services, artificial intelligence technologies and digital imaging technologies," said Dr. Corona. "We can't afford to rely on the old academic medical center models anymore. We must embrace the disruptive care models to thrive."
Sunil Eappen, MD, president and CEO of University of Vermont Health Network in Burlington, is focusing transformation on value-based care. His system is moving to a CMMI model of care called AHEAD, and the system is testing innovative treatment and payment models to create a system focused on quality of care rather than quantity, and slowing cost growth.
"We know that to meet the needs of a growing and aging population, we need to change the system so it rewards keeping people healthier and offering more care at home to keep them out of emergency rooms and hospitals," said Dr. Eappen. "However, while our efforts so far have put us at the forefront of payment reform work nationally, we know this is a systemic, policy and cultural shift that will be a massive undertaking requiring engagement from hospitals, health systems, payers, regulators, and state and federal leaders."
For Mark Behl, president and CEO of NorthBay Health in Fairfield, Calif., change means finding ways to go from a traditional hospital system into an integrated delivery network that drives more value to employers, payers and consumers of "health and healthcare."
"The exciting part is the idea of becoming an organization that is no longer following the old playbook, but rather establishing an entirely new one," said Mr. Behl. "There are not many businesses that succeed by just doing the same thing year after year. The successful transformations from old to new require major change, which means placing bets and taking risk. We just want to make sure that we are doing so with calculation, diligence and precision execution."
James Terwilliger, president of the Puget Sound market of CommonSpirit Health's Northwest Region, also sees the value of taking risks, learning from mistakes and moving forward to evolve healthcare more rapidly than in the past. Change is especially needed in clinical programs and care delivery, where leaders are understandably risk averse.
"Our risk aversion can limit us sometimes and we can't be afraid to try new things," said Mr. Terwilliger during an episode of the "Becker's Healthcare Podcast." "The world changed a lot three years ago, and I'm frankly not entirely sure we've completely wrapped our arms around that. The old tropes of what engaged people in the workforce, grew clinical programs, created the collaborative environments between payers and providers; we have to be willing to challenge all of those and we need people in our organization that are comfortable doing that."
Mr. Terwilliger has focused on building the foundation of questioning the status quo in his region of CommonSpirit, and plans to continue to make sure the team meets the evolving expectations of patients and healthcare consumers. One recent example is the system's partnership with One Medical, which is owned by Amazon.
"We've now created a partnership where we're their partner in providing some diagnostic and acute care services, and almost all of that is being done not in the traditional way of picking up the phone and calling to make an appointment and getting into a queue to do those things," said Mr. Terwilliger. "I think we're going to learn a tremendous amount from doing this, and I think that's an example of how an organization like ours is saying, 'Okay, the way that we've done things, the way we've engaged patients is going to need to continue to evolve."