Hospital leaders share how they balance finance, innovation and patient care

In the changing market and the shallower pockets, health system leaders are limiting. Hospitals across the country are balancing new and ongoing financial pressures, adding digital health plans and needing to provide high-quality care.

On Monday, at a meeting at the Symplr Healthcare Operations Summit in Chicago, hospital leaders discussed how they handled a balance between innovation and financial sustainability. They share strategies such as reevaluating supplier contracts, leaning towards existing technology capabilities, and finding innovative ways to support patients without compromising profit margins.

Sandra Johnson, chief revenue officer of MEDSTAR HEALTH, noted that hospitals’ crumbling profit margins have become more unstable than usual, which is more unstable than usual.

For example, hospital leaders are working on how best to address supply chain issues and ongoing uncertainty around tariffs.

Johnson said MedStar recently held a meeting to discuss plans for the health system to stock key supplies and how expiration and practical restrictions can be taken into account.

She also noted that the massive wave of layoffs in the federal government has caused thousands of patients to lose midfield treatment.

Many of these layoffs are patients in the middle of receiving critical treatments, such as cancer care. Johnson said patients who are already in the payment plan have been calling MEDSTAR and asked the health system to suspend or postpone payments when looking for new jobs or coverage.

“We just had a meeting trying to develop strategies around how we can help them and keep some kind of profit,” she said.

Hospitals often find themselves trapped in a series of tricky situations in which they must balance compassion and financial responsibility. MedStar is working with suppliers to explore premium assistance programs and support helping patients continue to care – and at the same time, the health system is managing strict profit margins without jeopardizing financial stability.

Taylor Hamilton, chief consumer based in Ballad Health, Tennessee, noted that her organization is currently on budget and feels like a peer, her organization is squeezing.

“I went back to my team and said let’s look back at all the vendor partners we have. Everyone is constantly evolving. I mean, Symplr has this new and great product, and Epic is launching all these new things with Mychart from the consumerist side. And we’ve paid for that – we’ve paid a lot in the contract. We have, what we need and where the gap is,” Hamilton said.

In terms of marketing and consumerism, Ballard plans to bring zero new supplier partners over the next two years.

“[The plan] It is to leverage our existing partnerships and optimize these current contracts because we just don’t use all of these tools. ” Hamilton declared.

Katie Barr, chief nursing informatics officer for North Carolina-based advocate health, also highlighted this type of strategy, a way hospitals can control costs. Advocates prefer Epic’s local capabilities to control their spending more than other vendors.

“If Epic can do it or at least do it 80-90% as well as niche suppliers, then we should choose that,” Barr said.

She added that it can sometimes be difficult to prove that the tool is worth it when it comes to managing supplier relationships and new technologies.

For example, the value of a program such as virtual care or environmental listening does not always come in the form of direct financial ROI figures, such as the number of dollars saved.

“We need to find ways to bring joy back, which doesn’t always make dollars and cents,” Barr noted.

Indicators such as clinician retention or reduced residence time may help demonstrate the tool’s impact, but causality is often vague, she said.

With tightening budgets and rapidly changing policy headwinds, health systems are looking for new ways to save money and are forced to rethink what real value really means, not just the dollar, but the real impact.

Photo: Claudenakagawa, Getty Images