Choosing the right healthcare consulting firm is crucial for your organization’s success. With the increasing complexity of healthcare management, leaders often need external expertise to navigate challenges and enhance organizational performance. Here’s a detailed look at why selecting the right consulting firm matters and how to go about it.
Karen Wagner, Managing Editor, Via Healthcare Consulting
Health care has become so much more complex than the days of going to the corner doctor’s office. Operating a healthcare organization, likewise, entails a multitude of responsibilities, requiring a significant amount of expertise, not to mention talent.
With so much complexity to deal with and so little time, healthcare leaders often turn to outside sources for help in managing and strengthening the various components of the organization.
The Role of Healthcare Consulting Firms
A consulting firm can devise and implement a comprehensive workplan for an entire project, review a current initiative to identify and rectify stumbling blocks to success, or reach in to provide the critical piece to complete a project.
Three of the most critical areas in healthcare leadership are governance, strategic planning, and leadership development. Executives, such as CEOs, often seek consulting services in these areas, as the demand to drive excellence in the organization seems to grow with each passing year.
Choosing a Healthcare Consulting Firm
When choosing a consulting firm, focus on these three key areas that will provide a comprehensive assessment of whether the consulting firm is a right fit for your project.
- Experience
- Types and depth of services offered
- Methods for delivering results
Experience
How long has the firm been around and active in health care? An established firm generally has been around for at least five years, a decade speaks to the firm’s strength. Who are the clients? Do the clients represent a healthy mix of large health systems and small hospitals? Working with a range of sizes of hospitals enables a firm to marshal insights and benchmark leading practices that can be invaluable for improving performance.
Clients may be listed on the website or, better yet, may have provided testimonials. Because it takes time to develop a testimonial, a client’s willingness to provide a testimonial is a surefire indication that the consulting firm’s work was stellar.
Looking beyond the firm as a whole, review the backgrounds of the consultants within the firm. How long have they been working, not just with the firm, but in health care? What is their specific expertise? What are their credentials? Many healthcare consultants have taken the time to get advanced education in the healthcare field, such as a master’s degree in public health or health administration. An MBA further enhance that expertise.
Finally, how involved are the consultants in the healthcare industry? Do the consultants regularly speak at healthcare conferences and publish in the leading healthcare publications for well-respected associations such as the American Hospital Association and America College of Healthcare Executives? Consultants who are active in presenting to the healthcare industry and in contributing to its literature generally have a better pulse of industry trends, leading practices, and creative solutions.
Types and Depth of Services Offered
Of course, what’s fundamental is matching the services offered by the firm to your organization’s needs.
Governance consulting, for example, can mean many things. Is it outsourced board management? This takes much of the technical work – designing meeting agendas, documenting meeting minutes — of managing a board out of the hands of the CEO and/or board liaison and into the hands of experienced board managers who can work more efficiently and effectively, freeing up an executive’s time for organizational strategy work.
Is it something complex, such as governance redesign? Committee development? Board orientation and education? Be sure to carefully assess the firm’s offerings to confirm they meet your specific governance needs and organizational objectives. A firm that offers an array of related services such as these can often better identify areas of opportunity and suggest ways to improve performance.
Similarly, the strategic planning process will often widely differ widely from one consulting firm to another. Are you looking for primarily a quantitative analysis? A qualitative analysis? Or, a mix of both? Do you work well under a collaborative process wherein the consultants work closely with your internal team to develop the plan? Or, do you work better hands off, and want to supply the necessary materials and data and then wait to review the draft plan?
A strategic plan is one of the most important documents an organization will develop. Fully understanding the process a firm undertakes to develop a plan is a critical piece of information that should be known well in advance of beginning the project.
Likewise, executive leadership development can comprise an array of services, such as coaching for the CEO, the executive leadership team, and for the board of directors, in addition to succession planning for the CEO and CEO assessment. Leadership development is a collaborative process, so it’s critical to choose a firm that you believe you can work with as partners throughout the process.
Because all leaders and leadership teams have their own particular dynamics, a healthcare consulting firm should be able to customize its leadership development services to the needs of your organization and individual team members. Also, pay careful attention to the tools, such as personal interviews, personality assessments, or focus groups, the consulting firm uses to assess whether they align with how you want to invest your time.
Methods for Delivering Result
Understanding a firm’s approach to the work is understanding how the firm delivers results. It’s important that the firm use a comprehensive set of tools to derive the crux of the problem.
A combination of surveys and one-on-one interviews with stakeholders, for example, are extremely effective in gathering collective and individual perspectives to uncover the often unspoken criticisms or disagreements that, although often common among team members, can absolutely weaken performance.
Virtual meetings are convenient and great for planning and tracking progress. But the real work often gets done on-site, in retreats, education sessions, and workshops. These are important venues for discussion of strengths and opportunities for improvement and developing action plans for change.
Being on-site enables the consultant to facilitate conversations, monitor nonverbal behavior, and elicit perspectives from all participants. This approach allows for a truly rich and comprehensive discussion of the issues and challenges the organization is attempting to address. In-person gatherings are better for fostering trust and effective communication among participants. The goal is establishing a foundation for the necessary change and actions that will create the runway to success.
Communication & Rapport
What’s missing from the above list is completely foundational when choosing a healthcare consulting firm no matter the project: the importance of strong communication and an easy rapport with the consultants. Do they respond in a timely manner to your communication? Are you satisfied with how they answer your questions? Is their style too casual, too formal?
Selecting the right healthcare consulting firm is vital for achieving organizational goals and effective governance. Take the time to understand your needs, convey those to prospective partners, and do the due diligence to ensure a good fit. This will take time, no doubt, but the benefits will be more effective results.
Gain Clarity with Expert Support – Leadership Succession Planning
Navigating the complexities of health care can be daunting. By partnering with Via Healthcare Consulting, organizations benefit from expert support and customized solutions tailored to their specific needs. With over 25 years of experience in healthcare governance, ViaHCC offers invaluable insights and guidance to enhance organizational effectiveness. From strategic planning to board development, Via empowers healthcare leaders to overcome challenges and transform their organizations. Book a call today to unlock the benefits of working with Via Healthcare Consulting.
