As 2023 comes to an end and prognostics for 2024 pepper Inboxes, high anxiety is understandable. The near-term environment for hospitals, especially public hospitals and not-for-profit health systems, is tepid at best: despite the November uptick in operating margins to 2% (Fitch, Syntellis), the future for hospitals is uncertain and it’s due to more than payer reimbursement, labor costs and regulatory changes.

Putting lipstick on the pig serves no useful purpose:

though state hospital associations, AHA, FAH, AEH and others have been effective in fending off unwelcome threats ranging from 340B cuts, site neutral payments and others at least temporarily, the welcoming environment for hospitals in the throes of the pandemic has been replaced by animosity and distrust.

The majority of the population believes U.S. the health system is heading in the wrong direction and think hospitals are complicit (See Polling data from Gallup and Keckley Poll below). They believe the system puts its profit above patient care and welcome greater transparency about prices and business practices. In states like Colorado (hospital expenditure report), Minnesota (billing and collection), and Oregon (nurse staffing levels), new regulations feed the public’s appetite for hospital accountability alongside bipartisan Congressional efforts to limit tax exemptions and funding for hospitals.

It’s a tsunami hospital boards must address if they are to carry out their fiduciary responsibilities:

• Set Direction: The organization’s long-term strategy in the context of its vision, mission and values.
• Secure Capital: The amount and sourcing of capital necessary to execute the strategy.
• Hire a Competent CEO and Give Direction: Boards set direction; CEOs execute.

Regretfully, near-term pressures on hospitals have compromised long-term strategic planning in which the Board play’s the central role. But most hospital boards lack adequate preparedness to independently assess the long-term future for their organization i.e. analysis of trends and assumptions that cumulatively reshape markets, define opportunities and frame possible destinations for hospitals drawn from 5 zones of surveillance:

• Clinical innovations.
• Technology capabilities.
• Capital Market Access and Deployment.
• Regulatory Policy Changes.
• Consumer Values, Preferences and Actions.

In reality, the near-term issues i.e. labor and supply chain costs, insurer reimbursement, workforce burnout et al—dominate board meetings; long-range strategic planning is relegated to an annual retreat where the management team and often a consultant present a recommendation for approval. But in many organizations, the long-term strategic plans (LTSPs) fall short:

• Most LTSPs offer an incomplete assessment of clinical innovations and technologies that fundamentally alter how health services will be provided, where and by whom.
• Most LTSPs are based on an acute-centric view of “the future” and lack input about other sectors and industries where the healthcare market is relevant and alternative approaches are executed.
• Most LTSPs are aspirational and short on pragmatism. Risks are underestimated and strengths over-estimated.
• Most LTSPs are designed to affirm the preferences of the hospital CEO without the benefit of independent, studied review and discussion with the board.
• Most LTSPs don’t consider all relevant ‘future state’ options despite the Board’s fiduciary obligation to assure they do.
• Most rely on data that’s inadequate/incomplete/misleading, especially in assessing how and chare capital markets are accessing and deploying capital in healthcare services.
• Most LTSPs are not used as milestones for monitoring performance nor are underlying assumptions upon which LRSPs are based revisited.

My take:

The Board’s role in Long-Range Strategic Planning is, in many ways, it’s most important. It is the basis for deciding the capital requirements necessary to its implementation and the basis for hiring, keeping and compensating the CEO. But in most hospitals, the board’s desire to engage more directly around long-term strategy for the organization is not addressed. Understandable…

• Boards are getting more media attention these days, and it’s usually in an unflattering context. Disclosures of Board malperformance in high profile healthcare organizations like Theranos, Purdue and others has been notable. Protocols for responding among Board members in investor-owned organizations is a priority, but less-so in many not-for-profit settings including hospitals often caught by surprise by media.
• And Board members are asking for their organizations to engage them in more in strategy development. In the latest National Association of Corporate Directors’ survey, 81% of directors cited “oversight of strategic execution” and 80% “oversight of strategy development” as their top concerns from a list of 13 options. Hospital boards are no exception: they want to be engaged and cringe when treated as rubber stamps.

Hospital boards intuitively understand that surviving/thriving in 2024 is important but no guarantee of long-term stability given sobering realities with long-term impact:

• The core business of hospitals–inpatient, outpatient and emergency services—is subject to market constraints on its prices, consumer and employer expectations and non-traditional competition. Bricks, sticks and clicks strategies will be deployed in a regulatory environment that’s agnostic to an organization’s tax status and competition is based on value that’s measured and publicly comparable.
• The usefulness of artificial intelligence will widen in healthcare services displacing traditional operating models, staffing and resource allocation priorities.
• Big tech (Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META), Tesla (TSLA) and Nvidia (NVDA)—collectively almost 60% of all S&P 500 gains in 2023—will play a direct and significant role in how the healthcare services industry responds to macro-opportunities and near-term pressures. They’re not outside looking in; they’re inside looking out.
• Private capital will play a bigger role in the future of the system and in capitalizing hospital services. Expanded scale and wider scope will be enabled through partnerships with private capital and strategic partners requiring governance and leadership adaptation. And, the near-term hurdles facing PE—despite success in fund-raising—will redirect their bets in health services and expectations for profits.
• State and federal regulatory policies and compliance risks will be more important to execution. Growth through consolidation will face bigger hurdles, transparency requirements in all aspects of operations will increase and business-as-usual discontinued.
• The scale, scope and effectiveness of an organization’s primary and preventive health services will be foundational to competing: managing ‘covered lives’, reducing demand, integrating social determinants and behavioral health, enabling consumer self-care, leveraging AI and enabling affordability will be key platform ingredients that enable growth and sustainability.
• Media attention to hospital business practices including the role Boards play in LRSPs will intensify.

Granted: the issues facing hospitals are reliably short-term: as Congress returns next week, for instance, funding for the FDA, Community Health Center Fund, Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Program, National Health Services Corps and Veterans Health is not authorized and $16 billion in cuts to Medicaid disproportionate share payments remains unsettled, so the short-term matters.

But arguably, engaging the hospital board in longer term planning is equally important. It’s not a luxury.

Happy New Year. Buckle up!