The shift to value-based healthcare has created a need for organizations to better integrate care for patients. And though some organizations are just in the early states of fully integrating care delivery, an article in Hospitals & Health Networks highlights eight health systems that have provided this care long before the implementation of healthcare reform.
These health systems include Advocate Health Care, Banner Health, Baylor Scott & White Health, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, Intermountain Healthcare, Mayo Clinic and Sentara Healthcare.
Although each took a different path to reach their goals for integrated care delivery, the organizations have three factors in common that allowed them to successfully execute their initiatives, according to the article. They had:
- Leaders with staying power: The average tenure of the CEOs is about 14 years. These leaders made sure the organizations kept focus on the goals, even through periods of uncertainty and disruption.
- Ability to remain flexible: None of the systems progressed quickly and each experimented with their paths toward integration.
- Shared vision to fight fragmentation of care: Executives, physicians and staff adhered to standards that yielded integration and value.
The article notes other key features the systems had in common. All of them started out with considerable prestige and reputations for high-quality care delivery, according to H&HN, often in the form of flagship hospital facilities.
Secondly, each system had wide geographic distribution, usually due to aggressive mergers & acquisitions activity. This, in turn, led to expanded care access and put the systems in a position of strength when it came to negotiating with health payers.
- here’s the article