Becker's Hospital Review

42 EXECUTIVE BRIEFING EXECUTIVE BRIEFING 1 H ospitals and health systems are constantly balancing the need to maintain focus on delivering quality care to all the patients they serve with trying to run a successful business. As shifts in site of care, evolution of payment models and patient choice drive macro changes, how do hospitals and health systems deliver quality care while maintaining fi nancial performance? Organizations that are most likely to succeed in this environment are those with strong physician input into clinically integrated cost management decision-making. To learn more about succeeding in this challenging climate, Becker's Healthcare recently spoke with John Young, MD, chief medical offi cer and senior vice president of clinical and advisory solutions at HealthTrust Performance Group. Both acute and non-acute care organizations need help with total cost management ASC innovation around surgical and anesthesia techniques, as well as recovery strategies, has been a major contributor to the decreasing number of procedures on the CMS "inpatient only" list. That's good news from a patient perspective, but the impact on hospitals is profound. "Patient acuity and case mix indexes are going up, leaving more complex care in the hospital," Dr. Young said. "Caring for these patients requires additional investment in capital and technology. It also demands a higher skilled staff set." In response, hospitals are reevaluating their care delivery strategies. Many are consolidating activities, analyzing value streams to remove waste and seeking economies of scale. At the same time, non-acute care organizations like physicians' offi ces and ASCs are engaging in similar work to improve their effi ciencies. Physician input to shared decision-making helps healthcare organizations thrive According to Dr. Young, healthcare organizations that will do well in today's challenging environment are the ones that engage physicians in shared decision-making and collaborative work. One key to success is focusing on growth areas that ASCs can't capture. "You need conversations with physician leaders to identify where savings are possible on the commodity side, so the organization can stand up new growth businesses," Dr. Young said. "Using cardiology as an example, if you want to start a complex EP program or TAVR program and you have a lot of variation in drug-eluting stents, those are commodities where you can standardize." Bringing physician input into organizations with HealthTrust Performance Group In 2015, HealthTrust Performance Group created a physician advisor group that consists of around 125 physicians from its 1,800 member hospitals. One of the most important roles that physician advisors play is providing the physician's voice in HealthTrust's clinically led strategic sourcing process. "We also reach out to physician advisors about best practice guidance, toolkits and operational effi ciencies that they've delivered in their health systems," Dr. Young said. "If members are having trouble standardizing on a product or they need to move from one product to another, we facilitate a peer-to-peer connection with the physician advisor network so they can learn how another organization made a similar change. This has proven to be very valuable and a service that no other GPO provides." Navigating market shifts: How hospitals are succeeding with clinically led strategic sourcing + total cost management

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