Edge Perspectives

As hospitals and health systems continue to find ways to achieve sustainable growth in the landscape of accelerating changes, keeping an eye on cost is essential. Cost challenges are not new, but they may need to be approached a bit differently than they have in the past. This week, Sg2 Perspectives host Principal Jayme Zage, PhD, is joined by Sg2 Principals Mark Larson and Jeff Moser, who discuss...

This week on Sg2 Perspectives, host Jayme Zage, Sg2 Principal, and Sg2 Principal Karyl Kopaskie, PhD, and Associate Principal Eric Lam discuss Vizient’s Health Equity Strategy Accelerator, a rapid-cycle strategic course designed to help organizations understand their ambition to address health equity goals and their organizational readiness to address and implement health equity strategic initiati...

Sg2 is composed of a future-focused group of strategists, and at the beginning of each year, we walk our members through our perspective on the top trends, issues, and opportunities for hospitals and health systems for the coming year in our Year Ahead webinar. In this episode, Sg2’s Associate Principal Jennifer O’Connor, FACHE, Senior Advisor Steve Jenkins, and Senior Principal Bill Woodson join...

For the first time on Sg2 Perspectives, we welcome two members of Sg2’s Client Service Delivery team, Principal, Sg2 Client Relations, Alison Wishnick and Client Relations Director Katie Leo. In this episode, Alison and Katie talk to us about what they’re hearing from Sg2 member strategic planning and executive teams regarding their priorities for 2022, including a return to long-term strategic an...

This week on Sg2 Perspectives, we take you inside Sg2’s 2021 Children’s Hospital Group Affinity Meeting, providing audio from our Children’s Hospital Enterprise Member Panel. Facilitated by Sg2 Principal Rebecca Limestall and Principal and Medical Director of Quality and Strategy Madeleine McDowell, MD, FAAP, guest panelists Ashlie Hilbun, EdD, MSW, CFRE, FACHE, from Arkansas Children’s Hospital;...

This week on Sg2 Perspectives, we’re focusing on health system boards: what they are focused on right now, as well as what they may be focused on in the future. Sg2 Principal Jennifer O’Connor, FACHE, and Principal Jeff Moser join us to discuss how board interactions have changed over the past two years; the current hot topics at board updates (eg, workforce, innovation, capital planning, growth);...

In this week’s Sg2 Perspectives, Sg2 Director and podcast host Trevor DaRin, Associate Principal Brian Esser and Director Tori Richie dive into Sg2’s Insurance Coverage Estimates, an analytic tool built by Sg2 to help our members not only understand what their market looks like from a payer enrollment perspective but also explore the local dynamics that might change those enrollment patterns in th...

Some of Sg2’s earliest members were academic medical centers (AMCs), so we have always made it a priority to engage with them and understand their challenges—which is what our Sg2 AMC Summit is all about. This week, Sg2 General Manager, AMCs, and National Vice President, Client Relations, Michael Humphrey and Senior Director Justin Cassidy, PhD, join Sg2 Perspectives talk about the biggest takeawa...

Today on Sg2 Perspectives we’re all about ambulatory strategy, and we’re approaching it from two different angles. First, Sg2 Principal Brianna Motley and Associate Principal Eric Lam discuss the Ambulatory Strategy Accelerator program led by Sg2’s parent company Vizient, which is a fast-paced, interactive program designed to not only help member organizations narrow down their ambulatory strategi...

Most health systems have been struggling with workforce issues for months, with the larger trends reverberating through contract labor and vice versa. This week on Sg2 Perspectives, we are joined by VP of Operations Melanie Bell, MSN, RN, CENP, and SVP David Hermann from Vaya Workforce Solutions who share their insights on the current contract labor landscape, the successes and challenges of deplo...

With the pandemic, every industry is experiencing a change in consumer expectations and how consumers interact with their products. Health care has some similarities to other industries, as well as some unique differences, so we recently reached out to health care consumers to ask how their expectations and preferences have changed over the past 18 months. In this week’s Sg2 Perspectives, Sg2 Prin...

Last week, Sg2 held an expanded edition of Executive Summit, our leading member conference focused on health system enterprise strategy. Today’s Sg2 Perspectives features audio from three of our guest panelists—Dr David Carlson, SVP, Provider Enterprise, and Chief Provider Officer, MultiCare (WA); Mikki Clancy, Chief Digital Officer, Premier Health (OH); and Edward Rafalski, Chief Strategy Officer...

Sg2 has gotten many questions from members this year on care shifting to the home, so this week on Sg2 Perspectives, Vizient Senior Director of Pharmacy Services Carina Dolan and Senior Director of Pharmacy Consulting Brian Hardy and Sg2 Associate Principal and cancer service line lead Cory Jones join us to discuss the shifting of infusions from hospital and clinic-based campuses to the home, from...

This week, Sg2 Principal Tawnya Bosko, DHA, and Sg2 Associate Principal and cancer service line lead Cory Jones join Sg2 Perspectives for the final episode in our unofficial System of CARE series. Tawnya and Cory take a comprehensive look at incentives and how they drive how the System of CARE is used, including fee-for-service environments vs value-based arrangements, the radiation oncology model...

This week on Sg2 Perspectives, Sg2 Senior Director Justin Cassidy, PhD, joins Trevor DaRin to interview FHN Chief Operating Officer/Chief Nursing Officer Kathryn Martinez, MSNRN, FACHE, on the health system’s integrated approach to care transitions—including making the case for ROI and setting up community liaison programs to assist with culturally competent care—and its success with remote patien...

This week, we get back to our service line conversations as Sg2 Perspectives welcomes Sg2 Director Ryota Terada and Vizient Consulting Director Joe Tomaro, who join us to discuss all things orthopedics. Ryota and Joe dig into the landscape for hip fractures and hip and shoulder replacement; the procedural shift to ambulatory settings; and health system opportunities for cost savings and partnershi...

This week on Sg2 Perspectives, Chief Product Officer and cofounder of AVIA Eric Jensen and Sg2 Principal Brianna Motley do a status check on the progress health systems have made in using digital health technology to serve their patients and discuss the challenges to digital health transformation strategy and execution, as well as take a look into the future of digital health regarding reimburseme...

This week, Sg2 Perspectives sounds a bit different—we are sharing audio from our health system leader discussion panel during the Sg2 Executive Summit July Webinar Series because our guest panelists touched on two key topics that many health systems are currently focusing on: workforce and how to approach health equity. Listen in as Dr. Alisahah Cole, System Vice President, Population Health and I...

This week, we continue our series of Sg2 Perspectives episodes that dive into the details of health system service lines. In this episode, cardiovascular experts Sg2’s Associate Principal Chad Giese and Director Josh Aaker, PhD, and Vizient’s Associate Principal Doug Beinborn join us to talk CV technologies, including key learnings and challenges organizations should know and be thinking about for...

This week begins a series of Sg2 Perspectives episodes that dive into the details of health system service lines, and in this episode, we focus on the landscape for spine care with neurosciences and spine experts Sg2 Senior Consulting Director Katherine Zentner and Vizient Consulting Director Patrick Vega. Spine care continues to be high priority for many of our members, but they’re facing pressur...

When CMS finalized the hospital price transparency rule in 2019, Turquoise Health saw the potential for price transparency to really shift the health care industry. This week on Sg2 Perspectives, CEO of Turquoise Health Chris Severn joins Sg2’s Brian Esser and Kelly Richard to talk about health system strategy in price transparency, from recognizing the opportunity to work more effectively with pa...

As the cost of insuring employee populations steadily rises on an annual basis, employers are looking to new business models to bend the cost curve. On this week’s episode, we talk with Vizient’s Jim Reilly, Senior Principal and Jeff Hayes, Executive Director of Direct-to-Employer solutions at Vizient, and Sg2’s Brian Esser, Associate Principal and expert in value-based care and employer health.  ...

Early in the pandemic, Tampa General Hospital decided to bifurcate the organization so it could prioritize its COVID-19 response but, at the same time, continue to focus on strategy execution. This week, CEO John Couris joins Sg2 Perspectives to talk to Bill Woodson about how Tampa General Hospital has continued to expand its System of CARE and used innovation to respond to COVID-19, as well as wh...

As we globally contend with the Delta variant, it’s become clear that COVID-19 is a moving target. This week, Vizient’s Associate Vice President, Pharmacy Sourcing and Program Services, Azra Behlim, PharmD, MBA, joins Sg2 Perspectives to help us understand vaccines and virus behavior, sharing her extensive knowledge on COVID-19 variants, the occurrence of breakthrough cases and the development of...

Sg2 and the Vizient family of companies are striving to build our workplace, as well as our business and our communities, into a place where people not only feel safe but also feel they belong and can be their authentic selves. It’s difficult work—and it becomes even more complicated for health systems when it goes beyond employees to encompass health equity for the patients they serve. In this we...