Healthcare organizations need strategic partner relationship with vendors. The old days of engaging a vendor who identifies a problem, describes a solution and walks away are over. Savvy healthcare leaders are now demanding partners who understand their specific challenges and are willing to develop strategic, joint investments. Innovation must be approached as a co-development model, looking to solve a problem in a unique way never solved before. They are looking for strategic partners with shared values for continuous quality improvement and efficiencies regarding solutions to improve patient experience and outcomes. The strategic partners must understand the culture and be knee-deep in finding a solution, working side by side and as engaged as the healthcare entity leaders and staff.
Developing solutions that create seamless, convenient, and user-friendly patient experiences is crucial to successful strategic partnerships in healthcare. In addition, improvements must be a force multiplier, bringing a solution to solve five to ten times the number of challenges, such as what OpenAI has recently done with ChatGPT. Amazon, airlines, banking and restaurants set the bar for consumer experience, which is critical to creating seamless patient experiences. Instead of adding yet another IT solution to their roster, healthcare leaders seek comprehensive solutions that cater to their needs while simultaneously streamlining their IT portfolio by reducing reliance on multiple applications and vendors.
In the pursuit of innovation, failures are common. Healthcare leaders expect their partners to work closely with them to identify failures and fail fast. At ViVE 2023, BJ Moore, CIO/EVP of Real Estate Strategy and Operations at Providence said, “Achieving a 25% success rate with partners would be a huge improvement” to what they experience today. A crucial factor in fostering successful partnerships is the alignment of values between the partners and the healthcare organization. To reduce the failure rate and improve outcomes, partners must understand the culture and identify what the health system is trying to accomplish. They must walk alongside the organization as they implement the solution to validate the solution meets the need and ensure a smooth transition.
Further, Providence identified three pillars of success: Simplify, modernize and innovate. Similar to following Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it is critical to simplify before you can modernize and modernize before you can innovate. Partners need to understand where the health system is in the process and guide them successfully based on where they are in their transformation journey. No longer can healthcare organization’s wait for an investment to provide value over the course multiple years – they need a positive return on investment in under a year and with a significant margin given the financial challenges in healthcare today.
Strategic partnerships are replacing traditional vendor relationships as a necessary change to ensure shared risk and value alignment to a healthcare organization. Strategic partnerships must drive innovation and be a force multiplier in creating the frictionless consumer/patient experience delivered today in the consumer market space. Learn more about our IT Advisory services and explore how we forge strategic partnerships with clients to drive innovation.
