Sg2 Blog

Digital transformation remains a key strategic goal for the health care industry, and the ongoing pressure to optimize workflows, maximize human resources and adjust to powerful technologies like generative AI has led to a resurging interest in the smart hospital concept. Broadly defined, a smart hospital is one that is fully digitized and interconnected across the care continuum, leveraging inter...

St. Luke’s Hospital, a nonprofit health system in the greater St. Louis area, consists of two hospitals with 636 beds, two ambulatory surgery centers, eight urgent care facilities, nearly 200 employed physicians, and a medical staff of over 1,000 physicians across 60 specialties. Post-pandemic, the hospital faced challenges due to the lack of a formalized strategic plan and wanted to refine ...

Environmental factors are adversely impacting provider financials and weakening providers’ positions in fee-for-service (FFS) contracting. Providers have been working to regain financial stability after pandemic-driven volume swings that were quickly followed by workforce shortages—now the health care industry can add inflation to the list of considerable challenges. These pressures have quickly ...

Editor's note: Randena Hulstrand, Lead Brand Journalist, Vizient, contributed to this post. By addressing hospital utilization and quality, implementing innovative models of care and forging partnerships, health systems can help reduce economic disparities and improve patient access to behavioral healthcare services. While behavioral health conditions—including major depression, anxiety and ...

Despite headwinds, private equity (PE) continues to make strong inroads into health care. PE investment will remain a significant force for the foreseeable future, which represents both an opportunity and a challenge for health systems. Although some see PE as an unwelcome intrusion that complicates physician alignment and service line growth, forward-thinking health systems are leveraging PE par...

Understanding the Transition: ACO REACH Replaces Current Direct Contracting Model On February 24, 2022, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) announced the ACO REACH (Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health) Model, with an application period ending April 22, 2022. ACO REACH will replace the current Direct Contracting Model (DC) on January 1, 2023, as the highest level of...

In our previous post, we discussed health inequities in our current health care landscape, providing some examples of how the negative impacts of social determinants of health can contribute to undesirable health outcomes and lead to significant health disparities. Now, we would like to focus on how health systems can be more aware of these disparities and turn that awareness into action. Health e...

Editor’s note: Principal Rebecca Segel also contributed to this post. Three cultural influencing trends are colliding in the US: a global pandemic, a recession and a racial inequity awakening. Each of these is drawing more attention to what we already know in health care—that is, factors such as race, socioeconomic status, environmental elements and social structures influence health....

As part of Sg2’s value-based care (VBC) analysis and market research, we review the quarterly earnings calls from a subset of publicly traded legacy payers and VBC-focused entrants. The summary is designed to highlight emerging trends and dynamics in these closely related industries, especially as they tie to VBC. The following post draws from recently released earnings call transcripts fro...

Virtua Health is a five-hospital system with more than 350 locations in southern New Jersey, including 40+ ambulatory surgery centers, seven emergency departments, and seven urgent care centers, as well as telehealth options; its specialties include orthopedics and advanced surgery. The system aimed to optimize its digestive disease services after acquiring several gastroenterology groups and Lour...