Sage Growth Partners' annual survey of more than 100 C-Suite executives illustrates that hospital and health system leaders are focusing on growing revenue to emerge from difficult macroeconomic conditions, continuing to grapple with ongoing workforce shortages, and facing the immediate need to reduce costs and operating expenses to become or remain sustainable.
This report examines C-Suites’ strategic priorities to navigate the evolving ecosystem, where health IT is helping to address their greatest challenges and where the tools are continuing to fall short. C-Suites, for instance, are taking less of a shine to digital tools and, instead, focusing more on basics: EMR optimization, people, and operations are all critical. The survey data also foreshadows what could become a more substantive transition to value-based care than what has occurred in the past.
Key Findings
57%
of survey respondents rank growing revenue as the top strategic initiative, 55% say it’s staff recruitment and retention, and 46% say reducing costs.
60%
say EMR optimization is the top technology initiative, only 24% say their EMR lives up to vendor’s promises “very well,” and only 17% strongly agree their current EMR will meet their needs moving forward.
45%
of survey respondents say integrating AI with clinical workflows has led to improvements in data quality and accessibility, while 20% say it creates regulatory and legal challenges, and 71% say it’s too early to tell whether AI will generate revenue or cost-savings.
65%
of survey respondents say the health of their patient populations is worse than pre-pandemic, up from 52% in 2022.
29%
of survey respondents are aggressively adding value-based contracts, while 52% are maintaining current levels, and nearly half (44%) have more than 20% of their revenue in risk-based arrangements.
