Maestro Strategies

Designing the Future: Inserting the Right People Into the Process

White Paper: Written by Pam Arlotto, Mark Hagland, for publication in the September/October issue of Healthcare Innovation.

Few would disagree that the U.S. healthcare system is moving through a period of unprecedented change and challenge. In the wake of the massive COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals, medical groups, and integrated health systems were left both financially destabilized and very short of staff, particularly with regard to nurses and other clinicians, but also in a wide range of areas, such as healthcare information technology, revenue cycle management, and so on…

…How to become smarter, leaner, more efficient, and with better patient outcomes? A part of the answer, as everyone has always known, has been through leveraging information technology. But the old ways of doing so, focused on simply implementing electronic health records (EHRs) and other technologies, and hoping for the best, are no longer cutting it.

To download your copy of the white paper, click here Designing the Future – Inserting the Right People Into the Process

Maestro Strategies

Population Health Management and The Care Management Platform Briefing

In partnership with Kaufman Hall, Maestro Strategies presented an Issue Briefing and webinar, Technology for Population Health for the California Hospital Association. The Care Management Platform will power the future delivery and financing of care. Care management includes both the clinical components, such as care coordination and disease management and the business components such as network optimization and contracting arrangements. The Issue Brief begins with a discussion of HIT’s role in the healthcare industry’s transformation to a value based business model for PHM. It takes a close look at the three stages of readiness for future “connected health,” the progress made by hospitals and physician practices and the envisioned future for investments in HIT. The Care Management Platform includes five building blocks: Foundational Systems, Health Information Exchange, Knowledge Management & Analytics, Advanced Care Management, Consumer & Patient Engagement.

To download your copy of the white paper, click here Population Health Management and The Care Management Platform Briefing

Maestro Strategies

Organizational Competencies in Informatics & Analytics for High Performing Health Systems

Maestro interviewed CEOs from UHC, the alliance of the nation’s leading not-for-profit academic medical centers, Quality Award winners regarding leadership structures, organization design and operating models for IT, Informatics, Analytics and Quality.  From these discussions with twelve leading UHC CEOs, five emerging themes were identified as health systems make the transformation from volume to value.  The executives agreed that there is much work to do to leverage investments in information and technology, by creating “smart” systems, hardwiring quality goals and using information to design new processes and care delivery models.  According to one leader leader, “In academic healthcare, we have historically focused research on esoteric innovation which is about 5% of the opportunity and we were ignoring the 80-90% of health services that would transform access, quality and cost but we kept doing them the same old way. Let’s reinvent that. We need a culture of yes – care, deliver, innovate and serve.”

To download your copy of the white paper, click here:  Organizational Competencies in Informatics Analytics for High Performing Health Systems

White Paper (CHIO)

White Paper — From the Playing Field to the Pressbox: The Strategic Role of the Chief Health Information Officer (CHIO)

Based on dozens of interviews with health systems across the US and additional research, this report looks at where CHIOs and their teams are headed amid tumultuous change in healthcare. Originally seen as the stewards of CPOE and Meaningful Use — and known as the Chief Medical Informatics Officer — the Chief Health Information Officer is now tasked with ambitious information technology initiatives spanning the health continuum, retail health and consumer engagement, and population health management. Historically, limited in its authority and with few resources for support, this emerging role is a key player who must collaborate with Chief Innovation Officers, Chief Transformation Officers, and CIOs to drive clinical integration, care coordination and value realization.

To download your copy of the white paper, click here:  From the Playing Field to the Press Box.

Maestro Strategies

Journey to High Value Healthcare: The Board’s Role in Clinical Transformation

As American health care delivery transitions to a value-based model, transformation leadership will be needed within each organization to create the health system of the future.

In Journey to High Value Healthcare: The Board’s Role in Clinical Transformation, author Pam Arlotto, President and CEO of Center affiliate member Maestro Strategies, provides a guide for boards and the health care C-Suite as they align strategies, decision-making tools, processes, information technology and people to build new organizational capacity for clinical transformation.

This publication defines the role of the board in overseeing this transition and explores the concept of an Information Technology (IT) Committee of the board. It also discusses meaningful use of electronic health records as part of the necessary foundation for accountability.

The author provides a snapshot of where the health care industry is today in implementing meaningful use of information technology. She also discusses eight strategies to help boards develop a clear plan and evaluate progress toward accountable meaningful use. Assessment questions are included to help boards critically examine their own institution’s progress.

This publication can be used as the basis of a board education session or strategic planning retreat that focuses on implementing IT and using health information to drive delivery of more accountable, value-based care. Boards can also use this publication to guide discussion of how they can best oversee information technology resource allocation and implementation.

published by The American Healthcare Association’s Center for Healthcare Governance

To download a copy of the white paper, click here.