https://mailchi.mp/175f8e6507d2/the-weekly-gist-march-3-2023?e=d1e747d2d8

During one of our regular check-ins with a health system CEO this week, the conversation took a turn for the existential. Lamenting the difficult economic situation in the industry, the continued shift of care to ambulatory disruptors, and the mounting pressure to dial back money-losing services, he shared that he was starting to question the fundamental business model. 

“Many years ago, we set out to become an integrated delivery system. But I’m not sure we’ve succeeded at any of those things: we’re not integrated enough, we don’t act like a system, and we don’t seem to be delivering the kind of care consumers want.” A stark admission, but one that could apply to many large health systems across the industry.

In theory, those three “legs of the stool” should create a virtuous flywheel: greater integration across the care continuum (perhaps in a risk-bearing model, but not necessarily) ought to allow systems to deliver quality care at the right place, right time. And a system-oriented approach ought to allow for efficiencies and cost-savings that enable care to be delivered at lower cost to patients.

Instead, the three components often create a vicious spiral: care that’s not coordinated across an integrated continuum, with little success at leveraging system-level efficiencies, resulting in unnecessary, duplicative, and variable-quality care delivery at excessive cost.

Capturing the value of integrated delivery systems will ultimately require hard work, and not just lip service, on all three pieces. Meanwhile, scaling a broken model will only exacerbate the problems of organizations that are neither integrated, nor systemic, nor delivering care that is high value.