Change in healthcare is accelerating, forcing health systems to be more agile than ever. Leaders face challenges on multiple fronts, from dynamic payor environments that impact revenue to shrinking margins amid rising labor and supply costs to persistent clinician burnout.
New and innovative tools, such as the spate of AI-powered technologies to streamline operations and support clinical decision-making, can help. But leveraging them effectively requires leaders to hone their expertise to be able to make investments that drive ROI.
Put simply, the landscape of healthcare in 2025 is radically different than it was just five years ago. Leaders who can adopt new ways of thinking and new ways of approaching innovation can set their organizations up to succeed.
Going forward, healthcare leaders must adopt a two-pronged approach to succeed
Even as healthcare evolves, traditional ways of doing business often remain in place. That means any strategy to fuel growth, improve care, or enhance margin must include a plan to streamline business operations and maximize efficiencies.
“The ‘big five’ of business operations — revenue cycle, supply chain, finance, IT and HR — all play a critical role in the organization’s goal of delivering high-quality care, says James Hillenmeyer, managing director, revenue cycle at Huron. “But it’s also about where you want to be in five years, and identifying the traditional cost and value drivers that you can leverage to achieve your goals.”
This approach, dubbed dual transformation, helps healthcare leaders address their key pain points today while also laying the foundation to remain an industry leader tomorrow.
How might dual transformation look in practice?
Because each organization and its unique pain points are different, dual transformation can look radically different when applied to different use cases. However, each scenario means taking two approaches: looking for opportunities to improve the current way of doing things and exploring opportunities for innovation to reshape these processes to meet the organizations’ evolving needs.
A health system looking to improve its authorizations might seek to optimize its current workflows, for example, by training staff and physicians to expedite authorizations and track KPIs to assess its performance over time. But they’ll accomplish dual transformation by pairing these efforts with longer-term initiatives, such as leveraging technology to address key bottlenecks. For example, fully automating the authorization process with payors or using generative AI to craft clinical claims appeal letters.
How healthcare leaders can drive dual transformation
Here are three best practices to help set up your transformation initiatives for success:
1. Cast a wide net, then narrow your focus
In a perfect world, health systems would be able to achieve industry-leading performance for every business function. But organizations must often choose where to invest their time and resources to make the most meaningful impact on the business.
“Sometimes, good enough is truly good enough,” says Hillenmeyer. “If you already have a solid accounts payable system, for instance, you’re likely to experience diminishing returns with further investment. But maybe you’ll see significant improvements by enhancing your talent management strategy.”
Hillenmeyer recommends starting with an honest assessment of what your organization already does well, and where there are significant opportunities to improve. These conversations are an effective jumping off point for close collaboration with leaders across the organization, allowing you to gain holistic insights into the most pressing pain points affecting the health system — and help you find additional voices to cheerlead dual transformation.
From there, you can explore the delta between where the organization needs to be and where it is today, start devising a plan to get there, and explore the best ways to demonstrate ROI along the way.
2. Think long-term to truly measure ROI
The most effective healthcare leaders take a holistic approach to determining the value of an investment.
“ROI comes in many forms. Of course, reducing costs or increasing revenue are important. But there are other outcomes that bring value to the organization, like patient satisfaction and employee retention rates,” Hillenmeyer says.
Use the organization’s mission and strategic goals as a compass to select KPIs to measure ROI, taking into account metrics that indirectly support growth, such as talent retention/turnover rates. “These are the kind of metrics that help define what type of health system you’ll become, even if they don’t have a direct financial impact in the next quarter,” he says.
3. Look outside the organization for support
Driving dual transformation requires significant resources, including time, talent and money. And organizations should reflect on which transformations they can accomplish in-house and which may be most effective to outsource to managed services providers.
While each organization is unique, Hillenmeyer notes that talent may be a top factor in deciding to partner with an external organization. “Often, health systems look to external partners for specialized expertise that’s too difficult, time-consuming or expensive to source themselves,” he says. “There’s also the question of evolving needs: An external partner can make it easier to stay current by continually updating and innovating your operations, and not every health system has the bandwidth to do that themselves.”
A trusted partner can help at each stage of dual transformation, from addressing the organization’s most significant pain points, to identifying what’s possible, to selecting the most effective KPIs to demonstrate value as you deploy new solutions.
The bottom line: Balance short- and long-term transformations to reshape your health system
As healthcare continues to evolve, proactive leaders have an opportunity to distinguish themselves by pairing immediate improvements with long-term strategic initiatives that forge a path to growth and a sustainable future.
Done well, dual transformation not only boosts cost-efficiencies, it also enhances the employee experience through streamlined operations and helps maximize outcomes for patients by allowing staff to focus on providing the highest standard of care.
Succeeding at dual transformation is a team effort — one that will often include external partners to help identify and address gaps in organizational bandwidth and expertise. “Ultimately, external partners are here to help you think differently about how you deliver healthcare,” says Hillenmeyer. “We’re here to help you define what’s possible, reflect on the type of health system you want to be, and create a plan that allows you to realize your vision.”
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Huron helps healthcare systems drive dual transformation, working closely with CFOs and other healthcare executives to reimagine what’s possible for their organization, then turn the vision into reality with the right people, processes, and technology. Visit us here to learn more.
