Four Keys to Increase Healthcare Market Share

Four Keys to Increase
Healthcare Market Share
HEALTH CATALYST EDITORS

© 2020 Health Catalyst
Proprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
Holly Burke
Executive Director
Clinical Innovation and Quality,
Pulse Heart Institute
MultiCare Health System
Needham Ward, MD
Chief Medical Officer,
Pulse Heart Institute
MultiCare Health System
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.”
Increasing Healthcare Market Share

Finding reliable data and analytics to
improve market share remains a
challenge for healthcare organizations.
While health systems must balance
myriad priorities at the same time—such
as patient access, provider recruitment
and productivity, and quality outcomes—
they cannot forget to prioritize building a
cohesive network of services to win the
market share battle.

Organizations can increase market share by
more closely aligning providers, administrators,
and the data they rely on to make decisions.
A health system’s leadership team must be
committed to improving the quality of health-
care delivery, employee engagement, provider
recruiting, and financial gains.
Along the way the healthcare system must
also find a way to scale the process, apply
it to other clinical domains, remonetize the
platform, and ensure sustainability.

In order to balance all the moving parts, it is
critical that health systems have a clear
objective, strong leadership dyads
(composed of one administrator and one
clinician) supporting the objectives, and easy
access to keep team members on track.

Four Keys to Increase Healthcare Market Share
Alignment Vehicles Five Tools Education

Alignment
Health systems—large or small—often
find team members pursuing different
goals, proving that alignment at every
level is crucial.
Realistic, long-lasting changes start with
practicing providers who still care for
patients and work with front-line staff.
With providers at the helm of new
alignment changes, other providers and
clinicians are more likely to support the
changes and ensure that they are
realistic and sustainable.
1

Alignment
Another piece of the alignment strategy is
to create some type of provider contract, a
simple, yet clear, document that defines
the mission, vision, and guiding principles
that will drive the provider-led, patient-
centric culture.
11

Alignment
It is crucial that both providers and administrators
commit to live the principles and to be champions
of the mission and vision.
After the provider contract is created and
agreed upon by leadership, team members
should review the document regularly to
promote its value and reiterate the health
system’s goals.
11

Vehicles
After the foundation for alignment is laid, it is
time to clarify expectations and responsibilities.
The first step is to create and then define
centers of excellence (COE). Leadership
teams can define a COE (like a heart or
vascular institute) as a patient-centric program
focusing on financial and clinical outcomes
and the role of process improvement and
care coordination within care settings and
across teams/organizations.
2

Vehicles
The COE is also responsible for surrounding
the patient with resources that lead to the
best clinical outcomes for the patient and
financial outcomes for the institution.
As improvement teams consider different
leadership strategies, they discover that
leadership dyads composed of both a
clinical and operational team member
drive better results, making it easier for
the COE to improve operational, financial,
and clinical performance.
2

Vehicles
With patient-centric processes in place
and input from administrators and
providers, a COE is better equipped to
provide a patient with the right resources
he/she needs along the continuum of
care throughout his/her life, instead of
providing a singular episode of care.
2

Five Tools
In order to make improvements, the COE
needs a baseline to help the leadership team
identify improvement opportunities and then
prioritize which areas to focus on first.
The best place to start is to perform a
readiness assessment to gauge the
organization’s current standing in regard to
data access and utilization.
2

Five Tools
The readiness assessment is an essential tool in order for an organization to
build an outcomes improvement-focused culture. After completion, the
readiness assessment can reveal opportunities for improvement:
3
TOOL 1
Access to
Data
TOOL 2
Data Acumen
TOOL 3
Finance
TOOL 4
Vision to
Execution
TOOL 5
Prioritizing
Outcomes

Tool 1 – Access to Data
With overwhelming amounts of data,
healthcare leaders often feel unsure
where to start.
With the help of data analysts and
research about what data strategies
other health systems use, leaders need
to understand that giving providers
access to consumable, specific data
about each provider’s performance is
a must-do.
23

Tool 2 – Access to Data
Because providers play a crucial role in
adopting new processes, it is just as crucial
to get providers more involved/familiar with
data on a regular basis.
Health systems should provide data to its
leadership dyads on a regular basis, in an
easy-to-understand interface.
When providers and administrators have
quick, easy access to consumable data
through simple applications, data
transparency increases throughout
the health system.
23

Tool 3 – Finance
Accurate data improves a health system’s
ability to survive on narrow CMS margins.
Data reveals which procedures have the
greatest per case margin change, an
example of one way to increase revenue.
So, it is valuable for health systems to
review data variation by provider.
23

Tool 4 – Vision to Execution
Data helps leaders understand how to
operationalize the vision into measurable,
specific steps.
On the road to execution, it is vital for
leaders to ensure that each patient is on
the right pathway to recovery.
In order to move forward without feeling
overwhelmed, improvement teams should
advise COEs to choose one procedure they
want to improve, e.g., LVAD, CRTs, etc.,
and then define clinical indicators for the
procedure they selected.
23

Tool 5 – Prioritizing Outcomes
With so many opportunities for improvement,
health systems must rely on data to prioritize
what to execute first.
Health systems should measure progress
with any preferred tool.
One opportunity to improve alignment is to
use the same scorecard for administrators
and providers, to ensure they are working
toward the same goal.
23

Five Tools
The five improvement opportunities can
only be successful if a health organiza-
tion’s team members have the proper
analytics support.
With a strong data analyst team in place
providing proper support to team
members, providers and administrators
feel more comfortable referencing data
before making decisions and more
confident in their ability to make decisions
and accurately measure progress.
23

Education
To effect long-lasting change, healthcare
leaders can’t rely solely on either
administrators or providers.
Rather, improvement teams achieve the
highest value when they involve both
providers and administrators in the
decision-making processes that affect all
team members in the health system.
24

Education
To keep the leadership dyads on track,
leadership teams should implement regular
trainings, with information specific to the
administrators and providers in leadership
positions.
24

Education
Improvement leaders will see better outcomes
if they implement trainings on a regular basis
because it is an opportunity to continuously
remind leaders of the objective—quality
improvement, leadership, and finance.
It is also an opportunity to garner clinical
support by having providers present trainings.
24

Data Drives Changes That
Increase Healthcare Market Share
With committed leadership dyads and
consistent training in place, the providers
and the administrators have an
opportunity to learn more about the value
the other brings to the health system.
This increase in understanding can
improve relationships and increase trust
between groups, fostering an environment
that values the diversity of thinking that
results from combining clinical and
operational viewpoints.
2

Data Drives Changes That
Increase Healthcare Market Share
For example, Pulse Heart Institute (PHI)
realized it could increase healthcare market
share by more closely aligning providers,
administrators, and the data they used to
make decisions.
With a clear objective to become a destination
center for heart and vascular health in the
northwest, new leadership dyads combined
with easy access to data empowered PHI to
increase its revenue by more than $48M,
surpassing the year-three market share
goals in year two.
2

Perfect Data:
An Elusive Roadblock to Moving Forward
As health systems continue their journey to
become data driven, leadership teams must
realize that perfect data doesn’t exist.
Leadership teams should identify an accuracy
threshold e.g., 80 percent accuracy, at which
the data can be used to drive decision making
and will effect positive change.
Defining the data accuracy threshold will allow
team members to move forward instead of
delaying action based on the elusive idea of
perfect data.
2

Aligned Leadership and Accurate
Data Increase Healthcare Market Share
Providers and administrators are key players
in leading change, but easy, constant access
to data is equally important in order to target
the right changes.
Clinical and operational dyads drive more
comprehensive results than a provider or
administrator working alone and emphasize
the importance of teamwork.
2

Aligned Leadership and Accurate
Data Increase Healthcare Market Share
The combination of leadership, data, and a
team mindset are a triple threat to cut costs,
align leadership/team members, and
increase healthcare market share without
compromising quality care.
2

For more information:
“This book is a fantastic piece of work”
– Robert Lindeman MD, FAAP, Chief Physician Quality Officer

More about this topic
Link to original article for a more in-depth discussion.
From Volume to Value: 10 Essential Strategies for Navigating the Healthcare Shift
Duncan Gallagher, President of Donegal Advisory Services
Three Must-Haves for a Successful Healthcare Data Strategy
David Grauer, MBA, MHSA, Senior Vice President Professional Services
Healthcare Data Literacy: A Must-Have for Becoming a Data-Driven Organization
Anna Kleckner, PhD, MPH, Business Consultant
Five Practical Steps Towards Healthcare Data Governance
Stephen Hess
Clinical Data Management: 3 Improvement Strategies
Jane Felmlee, Finance Operations Consultant

Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
Holly has been instrumental in partnering with physicians and executives in transitioning a traditional
cardiac service line into Pulse Heart Institute, a provider lead institute on the West Cost. Under her
leadership she has partnered with physicians and administrators in standing up the 6 centers of
excellence. She was responsible for developing dyad leaders and establishing the quality structure
for the institute. Through this work operational, economic and quality metrics have all improved
across the Institute. Holly’s knack for innovating and partnering with providers has allowed her to
develop numerous resources and tools, letting providers engage in the operational and economic
outcomes of the care they provide.
Holly Burke

Needham Ward, MD, assisted in the development of the Pulse Heart Institute and has been its
Chief Medical Officer since 2015. Dr. Ward served as a cardiologist at the Cardiac Study Center
in Tacoma, Washington from 1981-2015. He was Medical Director there from 1996 to 2004 and
President from 2010 until his retirement from clinical practice. Prior to practice at the Cardiac
Study Center, Dr. Ward served for nine years in the US Army Medical Corps.
Needham Ward, MD

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Four Keys to Increase Healthcare Market Share

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