How Effective Partnerships Support Exceptional, Cost-Effective Healthcare

The Role of Contract Partners in Helping Hospitals Adapt to a Changing Healthcare System

American healthcare is undergoing a transformation. Changing demographics, technological development, and new policy measures have all affected the way we deliver and pay for care.

Perhaps nowhere are those changes more evident than in the practice of surgery. Operating rooms have long been a major source of revenue for healthcare providers.

Yet as the economics of healthcare shift, health systems have experienced shrinking margins.

Today’s hospital leaders and managers are faced with the challenge of how to leverage new opportunities, mitigate risk, and ensure the delivery of cost-effective care. One solution is to use third-party service providers. A growing number of hospitals have established

outside contracts for functions like clinical staffing and supply chain management. Although outsourcing is not a revolutionary business strategy, its application to perioperative services represents a strategic and adaptive framework for hospitals to improve both patient care and their bottom lines.

This whitepaper explores key benefits of partnering with vendors by identifying four key trends affecting hospital performance and by analyzing how third-party service providers can help hospitals adapt to those trends. The findings reflect the experience at two health systems, Erlanger Health System and Baystate Health, where healthcare teams benefited from implementing contract service solutions, the results of which are profiled as case studies in this whitepaper.