The Chartis Group Releases an Approach for Creating a Successful Physician Enterprise in Academic Health Systems

Investigation of 14 peer academic health systems provides insight into organization models and governance structures

News provided by

Nov 13, 2019, 11:00 ET

CHICAGO, Nov. 13, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Many academic medical centers (AMCs) have evolved into academic health systems (AHSs) to ensure their continued access to patients, teaching settings and a leadership role in their market. This paper, "Creating a Successful Physician Enterprise in Academic Health Systems," explores the approaches and lessons learned from assisting numerous organizations in building physician enterprises that support the journey from AMC to market-leading AHS. The authors also provide a summary of 14 peer AHS organization structures and key lessons learned from evaluating these organizations.

Steve Levin, a Director for The Chartis Group, co-leader of the firm's Strategy and Academic Health Practices and co-author of the paper noted, "Where possible, the AHS should strive to create one cohesive physician enterprise able to provide patients with consistent, high quality experiences and outcomes and to design and pursue a single market strategy focused on the overall growth needed for continued success."

Successful physician enterprises are characterized by mutual respect and collaboration between the academic faculty and the non-academic full-time clinicians. However, building respect and collaboration is often challenged by several factors which impede health system leadership's ability to provide patients a consistent experience and superior outcomes for populations and episodes of care.

Chartis investigated how 14 research-intensive organizations, with a variety of ownership and governance structures, address this issue. The case study organizations are in various stages of building their network of full-time clinicians and believed their own approaches would continue to evolve as the scale of their physician networks expands and the physicians gain experience working together. The paper describes the three organization approaches identified in the case study organizations while recognizing that the right structure ultimately depends on factors unique to each organization. In addition, where an AHS starts is unlikely to be where they ultimately land.

About The Chartis Group
The Chartis Group® (Chartis) provides comprehensive advisory services and analytics to the healthcare industry. With an unparalleled depth of expertise in strategic planning, performance excellence, informatics and technology, and health analytics, Chartis helps leading academic medical centers, integrated delivery networks, children's hospitals and healthcare service organizations achieve transformative results. Chartis has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New York, Minneapolis and San Francisco. For more information, visit www.chartis.com.

SOURCE The Chartis Group