Related Information

Capital Structure and Enterprise Risk

Risk is ever present in the capital markets.  Rather than avoiding risk, hospitals need an effective strategy to manage it.

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Learn about "Managing Risk Through a Global Capital Strategy

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Integrated Financial Planning

Given the high level of uncertainty and changes anticipated with healthcare reform, integrated financial planning is more important than ever.

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Learn about planning in a changing environment.

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Physician-Hospital Integration

Integrated physician-hospital arrangements, which align clinical and financial interests, will be critical to the success of hospitals and health systems under a value-driven care delivery and payment system.

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Learn “Six Essential Strategies for Successful Hospital-Physician Integration”

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Readiness & Repositioning

A new business model is emerging requiring transformational change by hospitals and health systems.

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What has Kaufman Hall learned about organizations' readiness for this change?

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Strategic Partnering

Whether or not your hospital, health system, or network is directly involved in planning or discussions at this time, industry consolidation will impact every organization.

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Learn about "Achieving a Good-Fit Partnership"

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Budgeting & Operations Control

Establishing a more engaged and collaborative relationship around performance metrics is key to delivering services at the desired cost and outcomes targets.

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Learn how Kaufman Hall's Budget Advisor can help

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Features

Are you ready for healthcare's new era? Kaufman Hall can help guide the way.

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News

Introducing the Enterprise Edition of Hospital Advisor®

Introducing the Enterprise Edition of Hospital Advisor®, designed to meet the comprehensive financial and capital planning needs of hospitals and health systems nationwide.

Kaufman Hall Advises Saint Francis Care on Joining Trinity Health System

Hartford, CT-based Saint Francis Care will join Trinity Health under the terms of a definitive agreement, the two systems announced today. As a long-standing financial advisor to Saint Francis Care, Kaufman Hall assisted the organization in the evaluation of its strategic direction and partnership opportunities, providing advisory services regarding the considerations of joining a larger health system and perspective on the state of Catholic healthcare in the U.S.

Kaufman Hall Facilitates Gundersen Health Plan and Unity Health Insurance Partnership Exploration

Unity Health Insurance, an affiliate of University of Wisconsin Health (UW Health), and Gundersen Health Plan, a subsidiary of Gundersen Health System (GHS) announced that they have signed a letter of intent to explore a partnership, which may include a business combination. Kaufman Hall served as the exclusive financial advisor to both GHS and UW Health.

Kaufman Hall Advises UHC on Merger With VHA

VHA, Inc., the national health care network, and UHC, the alliance of the nation’s leading not-for-profit academic medical centers, today announced an agreement to combine into a single organization that will be the largest member-owned healthcare company in the country. Kaufman Hall has served as a strategic and financial advisor to UHC in pursuing the merger.

Kaufman Hall's Tim Shoger Provides Insight on Merger Integration in AHA Newsletter

The new issue of AHA Solutions' Insights newsletter features a "Strategic Advisor Perspective" from Tim Shoger, a Vice President with Kaufman Hall's Strategy practice, commenting on the importance of involving HR leadership early in merger discussions.

Kaufman Hall Facilitates Merger of SwedishAmerican Health System and UW Health

SwedishAmerican Health System (“SAHS”), a two hospital health system located in Rockford, IL, and University of Wisconsin Health (“UW Health”), comprised of University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics (“UWHCA”) and University of Wisconsin Medical Foundation (“UWMF”) and University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (“UWSMPH”), announced today a definitive agreement to merge their organizations and make SAHS an integral part of UW Health's community healthcare delivery model. Kaufman Hall acted as the sole financial advisor individually to both SAHS and UW Health in facilitating the transaction.

Evaluation of MTIs Critical in Efforts to Maximize Partnership Synergies

The ability to consolidate capital structures is a primary goal in a hospital acquisition or merger. In the September 2014 issue of HFMA’s CFO Forum, Vice President Matt Robbins and Managing Director Kate Guelich discuss four key factors healthcare leaders should consider in combining the documents that govern organizations’ borrowing provisions.

Cost Accounting Diagnostics: Seven Symptoms of the Need for a More Robust System

Hospitals and health systems nationwide are working hard to improve their cost accounting capabilities as the nation’s healthcare system transforms from volume-based sick care to value-based health care. Utilization declines and constrained payments from government and commercial sources will challenge organizations to preserve margins by keeping costs well below revenues at all times. Concurrently, patients, employers, and other healthcare purchasers are increasingly sensitive to the price of services due to rising healthcare costs, climbing enrollment in high deductible health plans that incentivize consumers to actively shop for healthcare services, and greater availability of price and quality transparency tools.

Academic Health Centers Today and Considerations for Future Success

Academic health centers face unique challenges with the shift toward value-based care and other changes underway in the healthcare industry. This report examines key transformation trends and their implications for AHCs, and suggests five areas of focus for AHC leadership.

Required Now: A Playbook for the Rapidly Emerging Retail Environment

As healthcare transitions to value-based models of care delivery and payment, a “retail care imperative” has emerged for hospitals and health systems.

7 Signs That You Need a More Robust Costing System

Having effective and reliable cost accounting processes is increasingly critical as hospitals and health systems nationwide face mounting pressures to manage costs. This article in the October 2014 issue of HFMA’s Healthcare Cost Containment newsletter discusses seven signs that can help healthcare leaders identify the need to upgrade their organization’s costing system.

Ensuring Cost-Effective Facility Solutions

Cost-effective facility solutions are increasingly critical as hospitals and health systems face mounting pressures to reduce costs. Managing Director Mark E. Grube and Vice President James Medendorp discuss key strategies organizations can employ to address facility-related challenges in this October 2014 Kaufman Hall article.

7 Keys to Cost Management

Faced with increasing revenue pressures, healthcare executives across the country are making cost management a high priority. In this Nov. 3, 2014 article for Executive Insight, Senior Vice President Wayne Ziemann provides seven strategies to help healthcare leaders integrate cost management into the organizational DNA.

Making Cost Management a Part of Your Organizational DNA

Given the scope of change needed, cost management needs to be not a project, but part of organizational DNA. During this webinar, Kaufman Hall's Strategic Cost Management Practice Leader Wayne Ziemann provides insight on the keys to achieving that critical goal.

Preparing to Succeed in a Retail Healthcare Environment

Hospitals and health systems nationwide face an imperative to engage in retail care. In the November 2014 issue of hfm magazine, Managing Director Mark E. Grube, Vice President Andrew S. Cohen, and Assistant Vice President Dan Clarin discuss the seven dimensions of retail care, and the need for organizations to develop a focused retail-care strategy.

Redefining Access to Healthcare Expertise: The Virtual/Telehealth Opportunity

Virtual healthcare services, including e-visits over the web and mobile devices, and other applications, are exploding. Various terms, such as telemedicine, telehealth, virtual care, or "connected health," are used to describe these services. Once the province of doctor-to-doctor communications about specialized cases or about treating patients with difficult conditions in rural locations, these care delivery models are going mainstream. In so doing, the models are redefining access to healthcare for consumers worldwide.

Evaluating Transformational Change Occurring in Your Market

Healthcare is transitioning from a volume-based model to one based on value. Hospitals and health systems have responded to this transition in varying degrees with some already boosting their capabilities and reconfiguring their clinical delivery systems and supporting infrastructure. Others have been slower to start the transition.

What Level of Scale Will Be Required of Providers in the New Business Model?

The industry's transition to a value-based business model will impact all providers. Many organizations will need to increase their size and strength to ensure long-term success.

Can Healthcare Be Uber-ized?

November 25, 2014 - Recently, the online transportation service Uber delivered something besides people: flu shots. Announcing a goal of “bringing house calls back,” Uber launched UberHEALTH with a one-day program to deliver free flu shots to customers in New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. An Uber spokesperson said demand was overwhelming. Uber’s foray into healthcare, on the heels of its rapid ascension in the taxi industry, should cause healthcare executives to question the very nature of a healthcare organization and what makes it successful.

Your Hospital Is Your Store

December 9, 2014 - Hospitals are the stores of healthcare. And if we are to be candid, they are not very customer-friendly stores at that. The hospital store is characterized by high prices, limited locations, inconvenient parking, complicated way-finding, and long wait times. Hospitals are a very appealing target for competitors that can deliver convenient care at low prices and that are committed to reaching consumers as close to home as possible—including through a smartphone.

Keynote Addresses on October 23rd at the 2014 Healthcare Leadership Conference

The Winter 2015 issue of Kaufman Hall Report features summaries of the Healthcare Leadership Conference keynote presentations given by Dr. Atul Gawande and Dr. Peter Diamandis as well as the rating agency panel that took place on October 25th.

Catholic Healthcare Today

Catholic organizations have always been and continue to be at the forefront of healthcare industry progress, with the Church’s ministry of healthcare “interwoven into the lives of patients, neighbors, communities, and the world.” This publication presents the findings of a Kaufman Hall study, which focused on Catholic healthcare. The results were presented for the first time at an event during the 2014 Catholic Health Assembly.

When Innovative and Legacy Forces Meet

December 23, 2014 - From energy to education to healthcare, when innovations arise in response to a pervasive societal need, a complex interaction results among innovators, legacy organizations, government, and the public. Several recent examples suggest patterns in how each party responds and potential roles for existing healthcare organizations in a transformative environment.

The Value of Time

January 6, 2015 - Enhancing convenience is not simply a matter of helping patients to better navigate existing facilities and processes. Rather, it requires legacy organizations to fundamentally redefine their interactions with patients based on how to best conserve the precious resource of a consumer’s time.

Evaluating Reasons for Physician Practice Losses

The recent shift toward value-based payment and population health management has spurred hospitals and health systems to acquire physician practices to build scale, enhance physician relations, and expand their physician networks. Organizations often have competed aggressively to add the best and biggest practices, sometimes without analyzing the long-term financial impact.

Keys to Successful Hospital Partnership Integration

To position themselves for success within a value-based environment, hospitals and health systems are partnering to create what they expect to be more efficient and effective arrangements. But according to Tim Shoger, a Senior Vice President with Kaufman Hall's Strategy practice, such arrangements all too often experience significant challenges in achieving their objectives.

Using Regulation to Fight Innovation

January 20, 2015 - In many large cities, local governments use medallions to control the supply of taxis, bolstering the taxi industry’s financial health and the medallion’s value. “These are basic economic principles,” says a representative of a company that finances medallions. “When demand exceeds supply, [a medallion is] a very valuable asset.” Then along came Uber—a company whose goal is to operate outside this regulatory and competitive framework. The technology that Uber uses to allow passengers to summon cars and pay for rides is “really cool,” according to Uber’s head of public policy, Corey Owens, but “what’s truly disruptive about Uber has to do with economic incentives.”

Measuring Productivity in Hospitals: A New Approach for the New Payment and Delivery System

Given healthcare's transformation from a fee-for-service system to one based on value, hospital and health systems will be rethinking how they measure productivity. Performance associated payment will be based on different measures.

Keeping Risk in Check

The provisions contained in contracts between payers and providers are becoming more complex. In this article published in the January 2015 issue of Trustee magazine, Kaufman Hall's Jim Pizzo and Debra Ryan argue that the increasing complexity requires boards to step up their involvement in the review and approval of new performance-based contracts.

Redefining the H: How Health Systems Must Evolve to Grow and Thrive

This publication is a report of the 2014 Thought Leader Forum conducted at the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development's annual conference. The forum featured a diverse panel of professionals in healthcare strategy, planning, and business development sharing their perspectives on the future of healthcare. Ryan Gish, a Kaufman Hall Managing Director, moderated the session for the third consecutive year.

Embracing the Smart(phone) Hospital

In no aspect of life is communication more important than in healthcare. Effective communication between patients and caregivers can be the difference between satisfaction and dissatisfaction, wellness and sickness, comfort, and suffering, even life and death.

Healthcare Transformation Is Driven by Local Factors

Hospitals and health systems are seeking to predict healthcare transformation in their communities to help guide strategic initiatives. In this Jan, 8, 2015 article for the hfm Healthcare Finance Blog, Vice President Chirag Patel discusses how the pace and drivers of change vary in different markets across the country.

Are Your Baseline Financial Projections on Target?

Having objective baseline projections is essential as hospitals and health systems face the many uncertainties associated with the transition to value-based care. This article by Managing Director Jason H. Sussman in the November 2014 issue of HFMA’s CFO Forum describes how to approach developing such projections.

The New Health Companies

Hospital and health system trustees and management teams are evaluating what it takes to become a transformative health company. In this February 2015 Trustee article, Managing Directors James W. Blake and Michael J. Finnerty discuss how a handful of high-performing health systems are coming together to offer more proactive care at lower costs.

Succeeding in a Disruptive Healthcare Environment

Hospitals and health systems nationwide face new competitors seeking to offer patients greater access to convenient care at lower costs. In the January 2015 cover story of hfm magazine, Chair Kenneth Kaufman and Managing Director Mark E. Grube discuss the need for organizations to adapt to the profound disruption occurring in healthcare with an increased emphasis on consumerism.

Your Hospital Is Your Shopping Mall

February 17, 2015 - As legacy hospitals struggle to adapt to a healthcare system that is moving away from inpatient care and toward an environment of comparison shopping, hospitals can learn a great deal by studying the experiences of another campus-focused business: America’s shopping malls.

Reconfiguring Your Delivery Network

The shift to value-based payment requires hospitals and health systems to commit to specified levels of quality and cost. In this article in the December 2014 issue of hfm magazine, Senior Vice President Walter W. Morrissey provides five tactics to help health systems overcome common hurdles to reconfiguring their delivery networks for the new business model.

Rolling Forecasts Improve Accuracy and Optimize Decisions

Rolling forecasting offers an alternative to the traditional annual budget that allows organizations to review financial results in real time. Vice Presidents Debra A. Miller and Jay Spence provide four guidelines to help organizations successfully adopt rolling forecasting in this article in the Spring 2015 issue of HFMA’s Strategic Financial Planning newsletter.


Events

VHA Georgia CEO Spring Summit

Kaufman Hall to facilitate and present an educational program on "Making Cost Management a Part of Your Organizational DNA".

HFMA NH-VT Chapter Annual Meeting

Managing Director Mark Grube to present "Succeeding in a Retail Healthcare Environment".

ACHE Congress

Managing Director Mark Grube and Assistant Vice President Dan Clarin to present "Meeting the Retail Healthcare Imperative".

HFMA MA-RI Chapter Enterprise Performance Management Meeting

Managing Director Ryan Gish to give keynote presentation "Integration: State of the Art and State of the States".

HFMA Region 4 Conference

Vice President Kris Goetz and a representative from Mary Washington Healthcare to present "Strategic Cost Transformation: The Mary Washington Story".

Illinois Hospital Association Spring 2015 Commitment to Transformation Forum

Vice President Debra Ryan to present "Negotiating Contracts in Value-Based Payment Models”

Missouri Hospital Association Seminar

Kaufman Hall to present a full-day seminar for C-suite executives and board members on "Managing Risk Arrangements: Getting from Here to There".

Western Regional Trustee Symposium

Senior Vice President Rob York to present "Leadership and Governance to Support Population Health".

HFMA ANI

Managing Director Mark Grube and Vice President Dan Clarin to present "Competing in the Emerging Retail Healthcare Environment."

Missouri Hospital Association

Kaufman Hall to present a full-day seminar for C-suite executives and board members on "Creative Affiliations for Success in the New Era".


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