Hospital and Health System CEOs Talk Post-COVID Strategies

Healthcare CEOs must take pandemic learnings and apply them to their organization's strategies to ensure they don't fall behind.

Editor's note: This article is based on a roundtable discussion report sponsored by Vizient. The full report, Healthcare System of the Future: Post-COVID Strategies, is available as a free download.

Hospitals and health systems are seeing a shift in operations as the industry moves to a post-COVID-19 era. Growth strategies are evolving, communications are becoming more consumer-centric, and the landscape of care continuum continues to change.

Executives working toward the healthcare system of the future will take learnings and innovations from the pandemic and apply them to their organizations' strategies to ensure they don't fall behind.

"We have many learnings from the pandemic, particularly building more virtual capabilities and focusing on our outpatient presence," says Ketul Patel, co-CEO of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health in Seattle. "As a new system, we have geographies that we don't cover, and part of our growth strategy is to ensure that we're creating capacity and access for patients where we historically didn't have services."

"[We're in] one of the fastest growing markets in the country, and so the health systems here are being heavily fueled by population growth," says John Haupert, CEO of Grady Health in Atlanta. "But if you look market-wide, there's a number of competing health systems and it's still kind of an arms race to [see] who's going to outdo whom."

Executives will build upon and create new growth strategies, they will switch their focus to be more patient-centric, and care will be inside and outside the walls of the hospitals.

"[What] we started doing is when we began to initiate all the digital means of access, we also began installing a customer relationship management system (CRM system)," says Kreg Gruber, CEO of Beacon Health System in Elkhart, Indiana. "What we're doing is tying that into our wellness initiatives and using that data to be in contact with our patients to manage their care, which then stimulates growth for services, screenings, and all those sorts of things."

Additionally, executives will be open to more partnerships, and will continuously work to repair staffing issues.

"Leaders and most of the CEOs in Orange County are working together to create internships, partnerships, and sponsorships, to help the underserved communities increase high school graduation and college enrollment rates," says Annette Walker, president of City of Hope Orange County in Irvine, California. "These efforts ensure success and develop a bigger population to meet our staffing needs, as well as elevating the health of the community."

View the complete HealthLeaders Roundtable report: Healthcare System of the Future: Post-COVID Strategies