Systemness, innovation, consumerism among top themes at 2025 Sg2 Executive Summit Track

Just when you thought unprecedented had largely left the collective lexicon post-COVID, the word once again reared its head at the onset of this year’s Sg2 Executive Summit Track ꟷ not surprising considering it’s a fitting descriptor of the current healthcare landscape in ways both intimidating and intriguing.

Recent policy is undoubtedly creating a whole new set of challenges, as are continued constraints caused by the growth in older, high-acuity patients combined with a shrinking workforce. But what the conference drove home are the unprecedented ꟷ or let’s say, novel ꟷ opportunities to reinvent and refine the way care is delivered through strategies that boost cost, quality and efficiency.

As healthcare leaders and Vizient experts ideated around the industry’s future, six key themes crystallized:

Note: Senior Intelligence Directors Tony Guth (left) and Tori Richie outlined strategies for strategic growth, particularly as healthcare organizations face challenges including an increase in high-acuity patients and a contracting workforce.

Do more with less — and get creative

Consider this … By 2035, the 65+ population will grow by 32% and make up 23% of the total U.S. population, contributing to 51% of adult inpatient discharges — without a proportional workforce increase.

Key insight #1: Healthcare leaders must evolve workforce structures toward leaner, nimbler and more team-driven models. Traditional staffing won’t scale — creativity is now operational strategy.

Why it matters: The “silver tsunami” doesn’t only apply to patients. The increasing demand from older populations is complicated by aging nurses (34% are over age 55) and physicians (30% are over age 60), which will exacerbate workforce shortages. Add to that the churn, burnout and high labor costs that have eroded traditional workforce strategies and the necessity of reevaluating current approaches is clear.

Creative responses:

• "Flexpertise" models: Rather than traditional staffing models that assign fixed roles to static units, “flexpertise” empowers employees — especially nurses, advanced practitioners and operational support teams — to work across departments, upskill into new competencies and shift settings as demand fluctuates. In fact, several systems have achieved success through these out-of-the-box strategies. Case studies include …
  • The implementation of a predictive analytics platform that forecasts inpatient volume and staff needs by unit, acuity and shift. Using this data, one system shifted staff proactively between units and departments; created nontraditional care spaces with flexible staffing to decompress ED volumes; and embedded standard workflows to support multidisciplinary engagement and reduce last-minute schedule churn.
  • A “capitalist” hospitalist assignment model, which one system introduced to prioritize throughput by shifting discharges earlier in the day. Surgical readiness was enhanced by rethinking pre-op evaluations, enabling team-based flexing across clinics and inpatient settings.
  • Aligned incentives across nursing and medicine to reduce ED boarding and inpatient LOS. One system empowered its staff to flex between units as a shared accountability model took hold, with decision-making supported by real-time dashboards.
• Task reallocation: It’s not simply delegation — it’s redesigning workflows to ensure the right tasks are handled by the right people (or systems), at the right time. Key strategies include …
  • Clinical task redistribution, such as a team-based approach with predictive analytics to coordinate discharge readiness, which frees physicians from administrative delay.
  • Administrative task offloading, like routing prior authorizations, chart chasing, insurance forms and documentation follow-up to centralized support teams or virtual scribes.
  • Digital task automation through AI-enabled tools (like ambient scribing, scheduling bots and symptom checkers) to offload EHR burdens and triage tasks.
  • Shared services and centralized teams to consolidate functions like utilization review, bed assignment, virtual monitoring and triage into centralized command centers.
• Integrated, cross-specialty teams: Multidisciplinary collaboration is needed not just within service lines, but across them, especially for overlapping patient needs. These teams should focus on:
  • Shared goals around defined populations (e.g., women’s cardiovascular care, geriatric oncology, maternal behavioral health).
  • Joint accountability with metrics tied to team performance, not just individual specialties.
  • Interdisciplinary design that includes physicians, APPs, social workers, pharmacists, PTs/OTs, navigators and digital agents all at the table.
  • Embedded support, which means care management, virtual triage, financial counseling and patient education are brought in early.

Key insight #2: Capital expenditure strategies must align with evolving demand and payment models. That can mean not building at all or sharing infrastructure with nontraditional partners.

Why it matters: ROI isn’t just measured in square feet — in today’s environment, physical expansion is no longer synonymous with growth. With site-neutral payment pressures, rising interest rates and payer steerage to lower-cost sites, traditional facility investment is at odds with future reimbursement realities.

Creative responses:

• Embrace an ambulatory-first mindset by realigning capital strategies around outpatient hubs and smaller, high-efficiency footprints.
• Consider “no-infrastructure” models (no physical building needed) and investing in virtual-first access tools. Also think about co-investment with disruptors or retailers as well as modular, mobile or offsite buildouts that scale with demand.

Turn systemness into a competitive advantage

Consider this … Despite years of mergers and consolidations, 75% of health systems saw no improvement in clinical variation after integration, underscoring the challenge of turning structural scale into true systemness.

Key insight #1: An enterprise-wide growth roadmap — linking market demand, service line priorities, capacity needs and financial forecasts — serves as a “single source of truth” for decision-making.

• Why it matters: A unified plan ensures resources, capacity and strategic growth remain aligned across all entities.
• What you should do:
  • Create a multi-year roadmap that integrates market forecasts and financial targets.
  • Update the plan annually with fresh market intelligence and performance data.
  • Tie capital allocation and staffing plans directly to roadmap priorities.

Key insight #2: Standardization of processes and interoperability of systems drive both quality and efficiency gains, but cultural alignment and shared performance metrics are equally critical for sustained progress.

• Why it matters: Systems that neglect culture and metrics risk creating technically integrated but operationally disconnected organizations.
• What you should do:
  • Develop shared integration metrics (e.g., clinical variation, service line growth, patient access).
  • Use enterprise-wide dashboards to track progress in real time.
  • Invest in change management programs to align culture with integration goals.

Focus on high-accountability collaborations that extend reach and impact

Consider this … In one long-term affiliation, over 80% of medical students trained in the program remained to practice locally, demonstrating how partnerships can directly strengthen community workforce pipelines.

Key insight #1: Integrated governance — with joint executive, advisory and operational councils — enables faster decision-making, clearer accountability and consistent execution.

• Why it matters: Weak governance leads to slow decisions, misaligned priorities and uneven execution across organizations.
• What you should do:
  • Establish joint governance at multiple levels, from strategic to operational.
  • Define decision rights and conflict resolution processes up front.
  • Schedule regular joint reviews to assess alignment and adjust as needed.

Key insight #2: Agreements must be both structured and adaptable, with clear budgets, timelines and role definitions that can evolve as market or policy conditions change.

• Why it matters: Static agreements can quickly become outdated, hindering responsiveness to new opportunities or challenges.
• What you should do:
  • Include flexibility clauses and review periods in agreements.
  • Build in triggers for re-evaluating scope or resource commitments.
  • Maintain open communication channels for proactive adaptation.

Note: Sushma Narra, senior associate, intelligence (pictured) and Ryota Terada, intelligence director, presented a session on strategizing for Medicaid during the Executive Summit.

Be proactive about policy — and don’t panic

Consider this … As of 2024, 40 states and Puerto Rico are using state-directed payments in Medicaid managed care.

Key insight #1: Medicaid is facing unprecedented volatility. That means healthcare leaders must anticipate the cascading effects — not just first-order financial impacts, but operational, community and clinical consequences.

• Why it matters: Medicaid now represents nearly 20% of national health spending; in 2023, federal support of Medicaid costs reached 69%. With the July 4 passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, states may reduce provider payments, benefits and eligibility.
• What you should do: Focus on no-regret moves such as …
  • Doubling down on value-based care capabilities.
  • Investing in outreach and community partnerships.
  • Advocating at the local level where levers of change are most immediately accessible.

Key insight #2: Reframe outdated assumptions and embed policy risk into proactive strategic planning.

• Why it matters: Strategy is no longer optional: It must drive alignment.
• What you should do: It’s all about the insights. Use data and predictive signals to create adaptive strategies that …
  • Prioritize investments that serve your academic, clinical and financial missions.
  • Use frameworks (such as Sg2’s Outpatient Portfolio and Service Line maps) to anticipate site shifts and realign assets.
  • Maintain organizational calm through transparent communication and trust-based governance.

Be cautious, but move quickly — advance AI with speed, safety and strategy

Consider this … by some estimates, more than 80% of AI projects fail — twice the rate of failure for information technology projects that do not involve AI.

Key insight #1: The fastest path to measurable ROI is in targeted, high-burden workflows — such as documentation, predictive risk modeling and operational automation — where AI augments rather than replaces human judgment.

• Why it matters: Focusing on proven, high-impact use cases accelerates value capture while building organizational confidence in AI tools.
• What you should do:
  • Identify “no-regret” AI use cases with validated performance data.
  • Pilot projects in areas with clear operational or clinical bottlenecks.
  • Build evaluation frameworks that track impact on efficiency, quality and satisfaction.

Key insight #2: Sequencing matters — mature, broad-impact applications should move to deployment now, while emerging capabilities remain in controlled pilots with clear evaluation criteria.

• Why it matters: Careful sequencing prevents overextension and ensures resources go to initiatives most likely to succeed in the near term.
• What you should do:
  • Develop an AI deployment roadmap with short-, mid-, and long-term priorities.
  • Move mature solutions into enterprise use while ring-fencing exploratory pilots.
  • Align AI sequencing with organizational capacity and change management plans.

Note: At left, Senior Principal Bill Woodson and Intelligence Principal Rebecca Limestall dive into the state of the industry during the opening keynote at the 2025 Sg2 Executive Summit. A top theme at this year’s conference: consumerism.

Prioritize consumer experience — and understand what it really means

Consider this … Nearly 2 in 5 consumers have switched primary care providers in the past three years, and roughly 40% use multiple health systems — highlighting the fragility of brand loyalty in healthcare.

Key insight #1: Consumer experience and patient experience are not the same, and your strategy must reflect that. While patient experience focuses on satisfaction with clinical care, consumer experience encompasses the full spectrum of interactions before, between and after visits. If you’re only designing for the clinical moment, you’re missing 90% of what shapes loyalty, perception and trust.

• Why it matters: Failing to recognize this difference results in fragmented journeys, underwhelming digital tools and the risk of losing patients to disruptors who understand modern expectations.
• What you should do: Start by reframing how your organization defines and approaches experience from the ground up by …
  • Mapping and separating the consumer vs. patient journey. Design touchpoints accordingly.
  • Building a consumer-facing experience strategy focused on ease, convenience and transparency.
  • Aligning digital access, messaging, billing and scheduling with how consumers behave, not how your system operates.

Key insight #2: Consumers don’t compartmentalize their care. They want holistic solutions that address mind, body and lifestyle — and they’re seeking providers who offer or support those pathways. Systems that embrace integrated medicine are positioned to lead, not lose.

• Why it matters: Patients are already pursuing alternative therapies. If your organization doesn’t engage with that interest, you’re ceding your role as the trusted guide and opening the door to misinformation and fragmentation.
• What you should do: Proactively create a safe, trusted space where consumers can explore their options and values, not just receive diagnoses. You can start by …
  • Developing evidence-based, clinically governed integrated offerings around specific service lines (e.g., oncology, GI, women’s health).
  • Positioning your system as the “trusted source” where patients can ask about wellness, nutrition, lifestyle and alternative approaches.
  • Collaborating with complementary practitioners in a structured, respectful and data-informed way.