Edge Perspectives

At the beginning of this year, Sg2 held its first of four “strategy exchanges,” where Sg2 members’ strategic planning leaders came together to share their organizations’ strategic planning structures and processes. In this week’s episode, host Trevor DaRin and Sg2’s Director Janelle Kwan, MBA, and Principal Jennifer O’Connor, FACHE, provide a debrief on what was discussed during that first session—from how strategy roles and approaches have evolved over the past two years to strategic prioritization and scenario planning—and what’s in store for the next three sessions.

We are always excited to get ideas and feedback from our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected], find us on Twitter as @Sg2HealthCare, or visit the Sg2 company page on LinkedIn.

Access to behavioral health care has always been a challenge, but the need for services has grown due to the pandemic. Health system leaders are now taking a hard look at how they can more effectively create capacity across their care continuums. In this week’s Sg2 Perspectives, host Sg2 Principal Jayme Zage, PhD, is joined by Sg2’s lead for behavioral health services Senior Consultant Stephanie Snider, Senior Consulting Director Lisa McGuire, and Associate Principal Matt Fadel, who discuss how health care providers can work to right size inpatient bed and ambulatory capacity and prioritize where they can make a difference both strategically and operationally, as well as data they can leverage to understand need.

We are always excited to get ideas and feedback from our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected], find us on Twitter as @Sg2HealthCare, or visit the Sg2 company page on LinkedIn.

This week on Sg2 Perspectives, System Chief Nurse Officer at Sutter Health Anna Kiger, DNP, DSc, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, FAONL, and Sg2 Director Janelle Kwan, MBA, join us to take a look at workforce retention and engagement through the lens of technology as an engagement tool—from both a health system and a national perspective. Anna shares how Sutter Health is thinking about artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for workforce enhancement and engagement, as well as how it’s encouraging frontline staff to help envision possible technology solutions for everyday issues, while Janelle discusses the national impacts of AI on workforce today and in the near future.

Sg2 members can access our Executive Briefing, Strategic Workforce Investment: The Case for AI and Automation, here.

We are always excited to get ideas and feedback from our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected], find us on Twitter as @Sg2HealthCare, or visit the Sg2 company page on LinkedIn.

Annually, Sg2’s parent company, Vizient, hosts a Health Care Executive Forum for C-suite leaders to connect and discuss the most significant issues facing the health care industry—and this year, participants were able to get together in-person! In this week’s Sg2 Perspectives, two of Sg2’s attendees, Group SVP, Strategic Growth Solutions John Becker and Senior Principal Bill Woodson, join us to talk about their experiences at the forum, including overarching key themes (eg, workforce challenges, health equity, partnerships), new perspectives on growth, and thoughts from financial leaders on economic resilience, as well as the power of being in the presence of other people again.

We are always excited to get ideas and feedback from our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected], find us on Twitter as @Sg2HealthCare, or visit the Sg2 company page on LinkedIn.

Many of us in the health care space assumed we would be experiencing a reset in terms of more normal health system operations by this time; however, that’s not quite the case due to the cost side of the equation, driven by both labor and supply costs. Thus, in this episode of Sg2 Perspectives, Sg2’s Principal Brian Esser and Senior Principal Bill Woodson join us to dive deep into one aspect of that equation: payment and policy. Brian and Bill discuss the impacts of the unwinding of the public health emergency (PHE), particularly on Medicare and Medicaid, as well as how health systems can take advantage of new Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) models.

We are always excited to get ideas and feedback from our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected], find us on Twitter as @Sg2HealthCare, or visit the Sg2 company page on LinkedIn.

This week on Sg2 Perspectives, we’re focusing on primary care, which is one of the most searched topics on Sg2’s client website. Host Tori Richie is joined by Sg2’s Senior Director Justin Cassidy, PhD, Principal Mark Larson and Manager, Health Equity, David Mena, who share our perspectives on primary care from multiple aspects—service line and clinical care, key consumer trends, and community health—while touching on related topics such as disrupters, health equity and chronic care.

Sg2 members can access our on-demand webinar Primary Care: Understanding Your Patient Populations here and our 2021 Sg2 Consumer Survey Report here.

We are always excited to get ideas and feedback from our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected], find us on Twitter as @Sg2HealthCare, or visit the Sg2 company page on LinkedIn.

The accelerating shift of procedures from the hospital to new sites of care like ambulatory surgery centers is a big topic Sg2 has been tackling for the past year. In this week’s Sg2 Perspectives, Sg2’s Principal Jennifer O’Connor, FACHE, and Senior Principal Michael Strilesky break down how this shift has the potential to fundamentally reshape what we think about as the core business for acute care facilities, as well as how to effectively align with physician partners, and provide a sneak peek into a new strategy accelerator program that will focus on ambulatory shift impacts and alignment with physician groups.

Learn more about Sg2’s Physician Strategy consulting practice here.

We are always excited to get ideas and feedback from our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected], find us on Twitter as @Sg2HealthCare, or visit the Sg2 company page on LinkedIn.

This week on Sg2 Perspectives we’re turning our attention to small community hospitals that are committed to independence. Sg2 just published an updated version of our Remaining Independent report that outlines considerations for these hospitals, and today, podcast host Senior Director Trevor DaRin and Sg2 Principal Jeff Moser share five big areas to focus on—workforce, local consumerism, local management expertise, care continuum infrastructure and financial stability—and how Sg2 is using this framework to help small independent hospital leadership teams prioritize.

Sg2 members can read the updated Remaining Independent report here.

We are always excited to get ideas and feedback from our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected], find us on Twitter as @Sg2HealthCare, or visit the Sg2 company page on LinkedIn.

As hospitals and health systems continue to find ways to achieve sustainable growth in the landscape of accelerating changes, keeping an eye on cost is essential. Cost challenges are not new, but they may need to be approached a bit differently than they have in the past. This week, Sg2 Perspectives host Principal Jayme Zage, PhD, is joined by Sg2 Principals Mark Larson and Jeff Moser, who discuss today’s cost reduction strategies, how organizations can infuse strategy into operational planning, and four key areas to focus on: strategic labor deployment, clinical efficiency, supply chain and pharmacy, and service rationalization.

Sg2 members can access our Executive Briefing, Strengthening Margins in an Era of Shrinking Revenue—Top Four Cost Strategies, to learn more about the four areas that offer health systems opportunity for cost reduction as they work toward healthy margins.

We are always excited to get ideas and feedback from our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected], find us on Twitter as @Sg2HealthCare, or visit the Sg2 company page on LinkedIn.

This week on Sg2 Perspectives, host Jayme Zage, Sg2 Principal, and Sg2 Principal Karyl Kopaskie, PhD, and Associate Principal Eric Lam discuss Vizient’s Health Equity Strategy Accelerator, a rapid-cycle strategic course designed to help organizations understand their ambition to address health equity goals and their organizational readiness to address and implement health equity strategic initiatives. Jayme, Karyl and Eric detail not only how the Strategy Accelerator  program helped organizations assess their health equity needs and what organizations need to consider as they move forward with their strategic plans, but also key findings such as the need to improve upon data collection and where the highest community vulnerabilities lie within a local market.

We are always excited to get ideas and feedback from our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected], find us on Twitter as @Sg2HealthCare, or visit the Sg2 company page on LinkedIn.