Building strategic value with your medical group

Despite massive investments by health systems in employed physician networks, these networks are often poorly aligned with the health system. At their worst, they operate as a loose conglomeration of practices, with suboptimal quality, financial and operational performance. This paper discusses Mon Health, a growing five-hospital system in West Virginia, and the development of its transformation plan. That effort first addressed the development of a vision of how the physician network would evolve to meet the mutual objectives of the stakeholders and the demands of the market, defined jointly by physicians and executives. The resulting roadmap further addressed issues like quality, provider well-being, strategic growth and physician leadership. The organisation ensured employed physicians would be integrated into the organisation’s leadership and operations, through vehicles like the physician leadership council and dyad leadership of services. Tactics include engaging physicians in service line leadership dyads and advisory board roles, building a shared vision for evolution, defining behavioural expectations for a common culture, and building the management infrastructure to drive these initiatives. The paper also addresses early performance improvements facilitated by this initiative. Ultimately, we will provide a road map for developing a transformation plan to build an accountable, multi-specialty group.