STRATEGIC PLANNING: Northeastern Academic Medical Center and Health System

The Challenge:
With more academic medical centers per capita than any other city in the country, the advent of managed care, and a high degree of concentration among a few major health plans, BDC Advisors assisted the most preeminent academic medical centers in the country with building a network of physicians and community hospitals to serve Eastern Massachusetts.

BDC Advisors has significant experience in developing and implementing comprehensive strategic plans. For this $4.6 billion health system, BDC Advisors developed a distributed network of physicians and hospitals representing 1,000 internists, pediatricians, and family practice physicians, and over 3,500 specialists who provide care to more than 1.5 million patients. To support this network of physicians and hospitals, a management services organization was established that provides medical management services, quality improvement programs, data analysis, contracting, information systems, and financial expertise. The network is organized into Regional Service Organizations (RSOs). In each RSO, the physicians coordinate medical care for their patients, share in financial risk or performance incentives in managed care contracts, and provide representation to the network’s decision-making bodies. In a subsequent project, BDC Advisors developed a payer strategy resulting in an increase in revenue of approximately $60 million. Finally, BDC Advisors designed a clinically-integrated network to align incentives among participating physicians and hospitals to improve quality, patient safety, and the efficiency of patient care. The result of these efforts has culminated in a series of “signature initiatives” that further differentiate the health system in their local market.