According to a January 2021 report from consulting firm Kaufman Hall, COVID-19 and the overall 2020 U.S. economic downturn didn’t substantially slow healthcare mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The pandemic, and its associated impact, appears to be a driver behind the active healthcare M&A market, suggesting that health system leaders, investors, and digital health companies will continue to seek partnerships for the foreseeable future. The Kaufman Hall research suggests one way health systems are responding to COVID-19 is partnering with other organizations to build core business streng ..read more

COVID-19 has placed immense pressure on healthcare organizations to have capable, reliable, and diverse analytics team members to aid healthcare leaders in making data-informed decisions. The need for robust analytics, however, isn’t new to healthcare and will be just as critical after the emergency phases of the pandemic. As the industry further digitizes, analytics demand will also grow, driving organizations to prioritize sound strategies for hiring the best-suited analytics talent as efficiently as possible. According to a 2018 survey by HealthLeaders Media, organizations have prioritized ..read more

As states and communities balance reopening with social distancing and other COVID-19 safety protocols, uncertainty around the workplace persists. For some healthcare organizations, reopening means transitioning specific roles from the remote-first setting back to the office setting, full or part time, or maintaining remote-first practices. Regardless of each state’s policies and organizational and team member choice, uncertainty, stress, and fear are likely. Healthcare team members who may have transitioned to the remote setting during the pandemic include case managers, clinicians offering t ..read more

From hospitals and clinics to data warehousing companies, data is the key to all sorts of improvements. As hospitals and clinics identify opportunities to improve provider performance that will lead to better patient care, and private-sector companies identify opportunities to improve team member performance that will lead to better overall company performance, implicit biases can be a stumbling block on the path to improvement. Implicit bias occurs when people act on the basis of preconceived prejudices and stereotypes without intending to do so. Everyone has implicit biases, however, African ..read more

The Health Catalyst Client Huddle took a departure from its usual COVID-19 focus on June 10 to address another urgent national concern—health equity and the impact of white privilege. The discussion centered on the importance of caring for and recognizing the value of all individuals, as well as how analytics will support this mission. Making the “Health Catalyst Way” Universal As a mission-driven organization, Health Catalyst operates on a set of values and operating principles it calls the Health Catalyst Way. Part of the organization’s mission, CEO Dan Burton explained, is to actively liste ..read more

The social distancing response to COVID-19 is moving portions of the workforce away from the office or facility setting and into remote, or work-from-home (WFH), environments. For healthcare organizations, team members now working from home may include clinicians offering telehealth services, case managers, administrative, financial, IT teams, and others contributing away from the frontlines of care. Though an adjustment, with the right practices, remote-first environments can be as or more productive than traditional office-based settings. Research has shown a productivity and team member sat ..read more

Measures to stem the COVID-19 pandemic are driving more of the U.S. workforce to remote, or teleworking, arrangements, including healthcare industry personnel who can operate from home (e.g., financial, administrative, healthcare IT teams, and other non-patient-facing roles). In keeping with state- and communitywide shelter-in-place orders and bans on nonessential travel, work-from-home practices reduce person-to-person contact in an effort control the transmission of the novel coronavirus within populations and families. The well-intentioned transition to remote work, however, carries an unde ..read more

From planning travel to buying groceries, today’s consumers are making more transactions digitally. Yet, as consumer-oriented industries overall turn to mobile-first, cloud-based platforms as their primary, and sometimes only, means of consumer interaction and engagement, healthcare lags behind. Healthcare digitization remains EHR centric and relies on a vendor approach to apps, resulting in a fragmented experience, poor data integration, and non-intuitive tools that too often fail to drive informed decisions or customer value. This digital lag puts healthcare at risk in an evolving consumer l ..read more

This report is based on a 2019 Healthcare Analytics Summit presentation given by Holly Burke, Executive Director, at Clinical Innovation and Quality, Pulse Heart Institute, MultiCare Health System, and Needham Ward, MD, Chief Medical Officer, at Pulse Heart Institute, MultiCare Health System, titled, “Physician Alignment and Data-Informed Decisions Increase Contribution Margins and Market Share.” Finding reliable data and analytics to improve market share remains a challenge for healthcare organizations. While health systems have to balance myriad priorities at the same time—such as patient ac ..read more

This report is based on a 2019 Healthcare Analytics Summit presentation given by Hani Elias, JD, MPH, Chief Executive Officer, Lumere, and Amy Whitaker, RN, BSN, Vice President, Supply Chain Clinical Integration Accountability, Bon Secours Mercy Health, titled, “Expediting Mergers & Acquisitions: The Role of Data and Clinical Evidence.” Health system mergers and acquisitions promise appealing benefits, including eliminating inefficiencies and the competitive advantage of scale. However, successfully navigating the merger process for optimal gains is complex, and research sho ..read more