Leading Health System C-suites Weigh in on Top Priorities for 2020
Published in the December 2019 Edition of Academy Insights
As we prepare for the year ahead, we sought to better understand health systems’ strategic and operational priorities for 2020. In a survey of The Academy’s C-suite member executives across Leading Health Systems (LHS) representing organizations of an average $6.6B in total operating revenue, we evaluated the level of priority across a set of 24 key issues. We identified the set of priority issues through analysis of executive perspectives captured through qualitative interviews.
Respondents (n=158) represented the following executive roles: Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), Chief Operating Officers (COOs), Chief Strategy Officers, Regional CEOs, Chief Medical Officers (CMOs), Chief Nursing Officers, Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs), Chief Learning Officers, Chief Marketing Officers, Chief Medical Information Officers, and Chief Nursing Information Officers.
We calculated the percentage of the C-Suite that marked each issue as either “Critical†or “High†priority for their health system. We found the rank ordering of priorities varied slightly by executive role. For example, the top priority for CHROs is workforce transformation, whereas the top priority for CMOs is reduction of clinical variation. Yet, despite this variation, there was generally consensus and alignment in 2020 priorities across health system C-suites.
The top five areas of C-suite focus for 2020 include sustaining margins while transforming (92%), expanding patient access across the continuum (89%), building high reliability and a culture of safety (87%), reducing clinical variation (87%), and creating organizational efficiencies (85%).
Interestingly, investment in the areas executives ranked as low priorities may support issues ranked as critical or high priorities for 2020. For instance, two issues executives ranked in their bottom five priorities- integrating new treatment paradigms and strengthening data governance- may help reduce clinical variation and build high reliability. In future research, we hope to further examine the specific practices leveraged to tackle these pressing organizational priorities.