Sg2 Blog

Many health systems have explored direct-to-employer opportunities at some level in recent years, but there needs to be more traction to show for these efforts. It is no secret that employer-funded commercial health insurance has provided the financial margin for providers, payers, benefits advisers and others in the ecosystem. Despite offerings from new entrants and incumbents designed to help em...

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a myriad of operational and strategic priorities for integrated delivery networks (IDNs) and brought to their attention the importance of an agile, rapid-cycle strategic planning process. In today’s health care climate, it has become clear that partnerships are not only beneficial, they are necessary, and this realization creates a unique window of opportunity fo...

As healthcare organizations face unprecedented workforce and financial challenges, much emphasis is placed on capacity constraints with rising acuity and regulatory scrutiny as powerful underlying trends. Many systems struggle to find the right balance between their margins and their missions, and often see their capacity realities outweigh their community's health equity needs. Or, if they've lau...

Direct-to-employer healthcare offerings benefit from proof-of-concept, and often your employees can provide an excellent test group. As health systems pursue employer engagement through direct-to-employer healthcare solutions, two of the first questions health systems marketing their services to local employers should expect are: Have you done this with your own employees? and How did it go? Organ...

With the Strategy Accelerator program, efforts to strategically prioritize your physician alignment initiative take shape As internal and external pressures push care out of the hospital, health systems must identify the best clinical opportunities and local trends for expanding their ambulatory business. Innovator organizations understand there are both opportunities and vulnerabilities amid w...

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has seized the public consciousness, signaling a potential disruption that could be one of the most profound in generations. Large language models, such as ChatGPT, are advancing rapidly, demonstrating an uncanny ability to process natural language and write compellingly (if not always accurately) by predicting word sequences. As more AI tools become avai...

How serious are health care systems about their consumer strategy? For decades, consumerism in health care has been a “nice to have” but not a “must have.” Health care as an industry didn’t value customer loyalty because they didn’t see those utilizing their services as customers, they saw them as patients—and patients require care. Thus, the health system...

Sg2, a Vizient company, is pleased to announce the addition of Melissa Threlkeld, MHA, FACHE, and Heidi Pandya, MSHA, as principals within its consulting practice. “We are thrilled to be adding Ms Threlkeld and Ms Pandya to the Sg2 team,” says Sg2 senior vice president John Becker. “They bring a wealth of experience successfully driving growth for provider organizations in a var...

Editor’s note: this post was originally published on Sg2’s parent company Vizient Inc’s blog. Frustrated with high costs, a growing number of self-insured companies are considering going in a different direction: contracting directly with high-performing health systems for their employees’ specialty care. Aiming for healthier, more productive employees and lower costs, ind...

Seeking to outrun the growing shadow of newer conferences like HLTH and ViVE, the 2024 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition brought together roughly 30,000 attendees to discuss the latest in health care IT trends and product developments. The topics covered were nothing unexpected: AI dominated session headlines and vendor pitches, but there was still plenty of attention spent on other ...