Hospitals are driving progress toward value-based care by acquiring non-acute care facilities such as outpatient surgery centers, according to L.E.K. Consulting's 2018 Strategic Healthcare Landscape Review.
L.E.K. Consulting surveyed hospital executives in collaboration with the American Hospital Association.
Here are three findings:
1. Hospitals are "deliberately and strategically" growing their presence in urgent care centers, outpatient surgery centers and physicians' offices.
2. The shift toward non-acute care facilities is intended to improve population health management and help manage costs.
3. Specialties like oncology, cardiology and neurology are being consolidated in centers of excellence as hospitals streamline their service line strategies.
"If your system includes doctors' offices, post-acute facilities and ASCs, you can better direct patients to the appropriate care settings in order to manage outcomes and balance costs more effectively," said Monish Rajpal, a managing director in L.E.K.'s healthcare sector. "The alternative is to sit in your hospital doing procedures and letting someone else deal with the outcomes. But payers may no longer be willing to tolerate that. Even if CMS has slowed its pace, private payers and large employers are demanding that systems deliver outcomes."
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