Within the healthcare industry, the emergence of innovative technologies and treatments is spurring new patient demands for different kinds of care.
And public health emergencies — like the COVID-19 pandemic — have further changed the way providers care for their patients, impacted the financial stability of healthcare facilities, and heightened compliance regulations.
Healthcare leaders are increasingly partnering with healthcare consulting firms for support in ushering their facilities through these — and many other — shifts.
Why healthcare consulting?
Because consultants bring highly specialized knowledge and industry-specific expertise, offering customized services that provide immediate value to organizations. They root out core inefficiencies, then work hand-in-hand with providers and staff to implement better processes.
Here’s a look at seven common benefits leaders can glean from working with healthcare consulting firms.
Staying competitive in the ever-evolving healthcare industry means keeping pace with emerging trends — particularly around consumer demands for more proactive, cost-effective care. A McKinsey survey found that a staggering 90% of healthcare provider executives and 100% of chief marketing officers put this kind of consumer-centric healthcare as a top business priority.
Healthcare consulting firms help leaders adapt to these changes by analyzing how current efforts are helping or hindering the organization’s ability to meet long-term goals. Then, they provide hands-on guidance for implementing the right marketing and strategic planning processes to exceed patient expectations.
Specifically, healthcare consultants drive organizational growth by conducting comprehensive competitive analyses, providing insights on emerging care trends, and equipping leaders to successfully adapt to market changes and take advantage of strategic opportunities.
Inefficiencies in healthcare operations, processes, and workflows can impact everything from patient care to staff retention and satisfaction to an organization’s bottom line. That’s why some major hospitals are implementing predictive technologies and other systems to streamline patient flows.
Working with a healthcare consulting firm can help leaders optimize efficiencies in all areas of their organization, including resource allocations, staff workflows, financial procedures, and technology implementation.
By providing custom-built solutions to solve organizations’ unique workflow kinks, healthcare consultants can help reduce patient wait times, improve onboarding processes, and streamline staff scheduling.
While providers focus on patient care, leaders are tasked with generating revenue and stabilizing the organization’s finances. Healthcare consulting firms enable financial success by providing specialized expertise in accounting, insurance, and reimbursement structures.
Consultants advise leaders on the most profitable areas to invest funds and help manage finances according to the organization’s level of risk aversion. After evaluating current financial management practices, healthcare consultants help create the right pricing structures for care and even work with marketing teams to drive new patients into the facility. In short, they focus on everything an organization needs to keep operating successfully.
Partnering with a healthcare consulting firm ultimately boils down to one goal: providing more and better care to patients.
But according to McKinsey, nearly a quarter of patients in the U.S. reported deferring healthcare during the height of the pandemic. The reason? Dissatisfaction with the difficulty of navigating the healthcare system.
Healthcare consultants help leaders solve critical care-based issues like this by identifying and addressing gaps in care delivery and smoothing out systems to better facilitate equal access to care.
Specifically, they boost healthcare quality and ensure organizations are keeping up with the latest research and evidence-based practices around patient safety, intake workflows, and treatment.
Technology is pervasive in the healthcare industry: 84 million people in the U.S. use healthcare apps, telehealth accounted for around 30% of all care visits in 2020, and research predicts that 70.6 million U.S. patients will use remote patient monitoring tools by 2025.
But these technologies are only as good as their usage and implementation. Healthcare leaders partner with consultants with IT expertise to ensure that technologies are streamlining — rather than slowing down — patient care.
Consultants focus on two main things: helping an organization get the right technologies in place to suit their particular needs and ensuring staff and providers know how to use that technology effectively. They also help organizations maintain IT security and adapt to new technological trends.
Given the sensitive medical, financial, and personal information that flows through healthcare facilities, the industry is a common target for data breaches. The industry hit an all-time high in 2021 with 686 major data breaches, according to the HIPAA Journal, and the U.S. government reported 145 breaches in the first three months of 2023 alone.
Leaders are well-positioned to fend off the bad actors lurking around healthcare corners by partnering with compliance-specific healthcare consultants. These experts analyze existing regulatory procedures and ensure the organization — and its employees — adhere to local, state, and federal policies. Through gap and risk assessments, as well as comprehensive auditing and ongoing monitoring, consultants can save healthcare leaders significant time and money.
Change is hard. It’s so hard, in fact, that McKinsey reports that 70% of all change management projects fail.
The good news, according to McKinsey? These initiatives are 30% more likely to succeed when people are invested in the change.
Healthcare consultants work directly with providers and staff on the ground to secure this buy-in and build custom action plans to drive organizational success during a process or system transformation. They ensure staff experience the least amount of disruption possible for the largest systematic and productivity gains. Through hands-on training, demonstrations, and input-gathering sessions, consultants ensure staff and providers are part of the change, not supplemental to it.
In an environment where healthcare leaders are expected to do it all, the successful ones rely on experts for support in critical areas. That’s why healthcare consulting is an industry experiencing rapid growth. Are you looking for a consulting partner that can bring your organization these benefits and more? Contact Elxo today for an in-depth demo.