A sustainable organisation in healthcare

In the 21^st century, healthcare providers worldwide are challenged to meet increasing patient needs while payer pressure constrains revenues and scope for investment. Updating processes, tools and infrastructure across the patient lifecycle is central to becoming a more sustainable organization (as defined in this paper). This can unlock greater value for patients, from accelerating diagnosis, through facilitating more personalized treatment, to reducing the need for readmission.
By helping you to optimize the service that your clinicians can deliver to patients, Roche Healthcare Consulting can help your organisation to increase return on investment while providing improved patient care and transforming the culture and ways of working to be more growth-focused and resilient.

At the heart of every sustainable system is a smooth and optimal flow, whether it be clinical samples, information, finances or even patients.

Understanding a healthcare organization at all levels (from top to bottom, designing organizational structures and processes to deliver smooth flows) is the key skill that Roche Healthcare Consulting can bring to help make your hospital more sustainable. Roche Healthcare Consulting can provide hospitals with the guidance and tools to discover their own organizational and cultural insights. Roche, as one of the world’s great research-based healthcare companies, has its own lengthy heritage in sustainability.

Founded more than 120 years ago, the company has more than 90,000 people working together in 100+ countries and follows a holistic approach when managing sustainability: in addition to improving access to products, the company’s strategy also focuses on achieving continuous progress in areas such as social responsibility, environmental protection, supply chain sustainability, people attraction and retention.¹ For nine consecutive years, Roche has been recognized as a Group Leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI),² which emphasized that Roche performed particularly well in the categories addressing the burden of healthcare costs, ethical marketing practices and climate strategy. Roche is also committed to supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals³ and has received numerous recognitions as a top workplace in many countries.⁴

The primary duty for any Chief Executive is to ensure the sustainability of their organization through the development and execution of an appropriate growth strategy.12 In the healthcare delivery sector, this takes an organization from
ensuring its financial survival to the development and growth required to become a future leading healthcare provider on a national, regional or global scale, delivering valuable health benefits to expanding patient communities. The nuances of this strategic approach to deliver sustainability depend on local market conditions, as each segment has a unique balance of pressures including from government regulations, market constraints on pricing, differences in
funding models (i.e., private vs. public insurance models of healthcare resourcing), potential for consolidation through M&A etc.

In any sector of business, many experts believe this is best achieved by taking a “balanced scorecard” approach13 to set priorities for economic success and profitability alongside goals around the satisfaction of stakeholder groups (e.g. particularly patients, and also payers, employees and investors etc.), building a resilient, growth-oriented culture, optimizing operating efficiencies, and long-term development (e.g., strategic planning, investment etc.).

The prioritization of these aspects depends on the precise situation of the business, but all must be considered to ensure that the organization is both strategically and commercially sustainable. For healthcare organizations, it is important that the concepts of economic success and adding value balances short- and long-term health benefits for patients along with cost containment for payers (e.g. government, insurers etc.). Similarly, some aspects of long-term development are linked to progress in the wider environment around the development and regulation of new treatment paradigms.

Transforming wider operational and business models 

Being part of a company that is a leader in healthcare, Roche Healthcare Consulting can help hospital executives enhance sustainability in every aspect of their operations by providing a range of options which include: workflow audit, value stream analysis, rapid process optimization, change management and cultural transformation, etc.

In addition, Roche consultants can bring in best practice examples from hospitals around the world, and work in partnership with hospital executives to identify and implement the solution that makes most sense for the specific local health and cultural needs, and still set in place a strategic approach or roadmap that enhances all aspects of an organization’s sustainability.

A smooth and optimal flow, whether of clinical samples, of information, of finances or, indeed, of patients is essential for a sustainable healthcare system. When designing a new hospital or planning major changes to existing infrastructure, there is an opportunity to improve the efficiency of flow throughout the hospital.

This can be something as simple as putting functions or departments that are frequently used together in close proximity. In the same way that modelling approaches can be used to optimize the design of a diagnostic laboratory, a similar process can be used to minimize transit time between key parts of the organization, leading to increased throughput and reduced waiting times.

Rethinking financial arrangements for sustainability

Roche consultants can help healthcare executives consider a variety of innovative financial arrangements to better distribute the economic risks and rewards between stakeholders. Several models for Value-Based Payment have been developed and piloted in different countries,^27-29 sharing the cost between payors (e.g. health insurers, state-funded healthcare) and suppliers (e.g. pharmaceutical and device manufacturers) based on the proportion of patients who
achieve key outcome targets.

These could be modified to also include the indirect costs associated with treatment and monitoring, as discussed above. As such, while a profitable organization generates short-term value from its customers, a sustainable organization must also generate long-term value for its customers (i.e. not only for patients but also for payers and for society overall).