Our industry reality
As the health care industry undergoes unprecedented transformation, health care administrators, physicians and other clinical and operational leaders must help shape a sustainable health care system that is capable of providing high quality, accessible and affordable care.
The Vizient Research Institute advances critical thinking and provides strategic thought leadership through rigorous quantitative research investigations with a focus on broad health care economic trends affecting the affordability and sustainability of our health care delivery system.
Our research
Made available exclusively to Vizient Member Network participants are the annual economic research study findings and topical research papers.
Health Care as an Uncommon Good: In Search of a Path Forward
Chronic care is reshaping the health system enterprise. Is your access strategy keeping up?
The Vizient Research Institute’s 2025 study examines how an aging population and rising disease complexity are accelerating demand for care — outpacing current system capacity and threatening continuity of care.
This demographic transformation is driving greater utilization across inpatient, emergency and outpatient settings, reshaping payer mix and intensifying pressure on margins. Nearly 80% of inpatient admissions now involve patients with chronic conditions, underscoring how multi chronic complexity has become the dominant driver of healthcare demand.
The study offers insight into how patient needs are evolving — and what that means for care models, longitudinal management strategies and delivery system design. It highlights why health systems must move beyond episodic access fixes and redesign care around integrated models that reduce fragmentation, protect scarce capacity and strengthen patient loyalty.
Shining a light on disparities in mental health treatments
The United States is facing an unprecedented mental health crisis. Variation in access to behavioral health care has resulted in health care disparities amongst different populations. Check out VRI’s latest research which highlights the variation in diagnosis and treatment of behavioral health conditions among economically advantaged patients and economically vulnerable patients and suggests strategies to close the disparities gap in behavioral health care.
Reducing Health Disparities: A Common Goal
The Vizient Research Institute's 2022 study imagined a future in which health disparities have become a social flash point. Based on a case study involving a fictional regional health care cooperative (RHCC) sometime in the future, member executives engaged in a year-long role-playing exercise as an RHCC governing board. They were charged with establishing guiding principles for a new financing system to reduce disparities and expand access for underserved populations and their medical needs.
The Promise of Health Systems: Right Care, Right Place, Right Time
Mergers and acquisitions continue to be the primary growth strategy among health care providers. The value of system formation to providers includes economies of scale and standardization of care processes, both of which eliminate avoidable variation to improve quality and reduce unnecessary spending. In addition to creating provider value, health system formation includes a promise of value to patients often explicitly stated as a promise to deliver the “right care at the right place at the right time.” Read the two VRI reports below to see how well health systems are doing in delivering on the health system value promise.
Controlling health care costs in the US: A fresh look at price transparency
Discover how the Vizient Research Institute can help you understand health care economic trends