How Hospitals are Recapturing their Investments

It is pretty much a given that payment for health providers will shrink in the future. And health system executives are logically asking:

“How can we do things differently?”

One answer centers around the unique products and services they have created internally at great expense. The only thing surprising about this is how long it has taken for providers to appreciate and act upon the treasure trove they have spent so much time and money to acquire.

Many providers are now seeking to follow some of the few leading innovators who have already found ways to recapture their investments - and more, through various avenues to commercialize what they developed for themselves as an offering to others who have similar needs.

Just a Few Examples:

• A consistently top rated community health system in the Midwest developed a Value Based Purchasing tracking tool and has great performance results. Several other providers asked to use it and have been impressed. In addition to sharing with “friends,” that system is now offering the tool and ongoing support through MX.com.
• A large multi-state health system developed a back end module to the GE health record allowing them to create chronic disease registries. Those health systems contracted with a third-party company to market and support this valuable product under a licensing arrangement to others using the same propriety system.
• A regional, clinically-integrated health system experiences such demand for its expertise it began to train others, developing a consulting arm and then licensing its know-how on MX.com for ACO tools that really cannot be found elsewhere.
• At least two very large national health systems have developed new lines of business to outsource HIP to others.
• A leading regional health system had such demand from others for information about its successful CHF programs that it creates a consulting capacity to help others and includes all its tools as part of the engagement. Others are doing the same for various well known Centers of Excellence.

Gaining Perspective
Every provider faces “make or buy” decisions when in comes to moving to the next stage on various initiatives. Worldwide, healthcare consulting is a $26 billion industry, so obviously many providers turn to consultants for all sorts of projects, and many consultants want to become outsourcers for health systems. And, being budget driven organizations, health systems tend to ‘do-it-yourself’ for projects that would require separate budgeting even when that is the least effective way to accomplish any real success. And, of course, there are thousands of vendors who want to sell products and services to providers, including the various GPOs and others groups they already belong to.