
Fairview’s $600M financial turnaround, explained
St. Paul, Minn.-based Fairview Health Services reported its first operating profit in six years last year, solidifying a $600 million turnaround in two years. How did they do it?
“We’ve really focused on building a culture of resiliency,” said Joe Gaylord, executive vice president and CFO of Fairview, in a recent episode of the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.” “We’ve built the engines within organizationally, we have a transformation office that’s incredibly effective, and we know how to identify those key levers, those key projects that have the biggest impact, whether that be on patients or the community or our financials. We feel great about our ability to adjust and react to whatever might come our way and respond.”
Nearly every business unit across the health system contributed to the financial turnaround, which didn’t come at the expense of patient care. During the same period, Fairview improved quality, patient experience and employee engagement scores. And they’re just getting started.
“We’re continuing our turnaround and building a great workforce that can respond to all the changes coming our way,” said Mr. Gaylord. “We are maintaining our work, operational discipline and workforce discipline. We’ve seen our nursing vacancies go down 83%, turnover’s down 36%, and those key things are really what help drive us forward.”
The stable workforce is important for the health system to continue its turnaround. When the organization has consistent full-time team members, they rely less on the transitory workforce, which can be expensive and challenging for hospital culture.
“Patients are having a more consistent experience, and we’re delivering better outcomes,” said Mr. Gaylord. “That’s critical to us and it doesn’t happen by accident. The focus on our staff and identifying key areas where we need to recruit, shortening the time for onboarding, making sure we’re plugging into things that matter to our employees to improve retention have all contributed to the financial turnaround.”
With the workforce stabilizing, Mr. Gaylord and his team can turn to patient access and capacity management. He said the organization is looking at programs to “keep the precious hospital beds available for folks that need it most.” Hospitals across the nation are leveraging technology, data analytics and remote patient monitoring to ensure patients have a safe recovery space while reserving inpatient beds for the sickest patients.
“[These efforts] also extend to access to specialty clinics or primary care clinics, and making sure wait times are as short as they can be, and that experience is terrific for folks,” said Mr. Gaylord. “In addition to that, we have a big focus on our specialty pharmacy business.”
Fairview created a separate business unit, Fairview Pharmacy Solutions, to integrate whole-care delivery, which has had a “tremendous impact” on the system’s success, said Mr. Gaylord. The Fairview pharmacists play an active role in patient care, ensuring access to medications for better outcomes and lower costs. Payers have noticed those results as well, and Fairview is beginning to help other systems build similar programs.
The innovation doesn’t stop there. Fairview designed an empath unit to serve patients who arrive at the emergency department while going through a mental health crisis.
“They can go to a much more conducive setting and get the care they need,” said Mr. Gaylord. “This keeps them out of the ED and inpatient admissions, and we have a better outcome for them throughout.”
The post Fairview’s $600M financial turnaround, explained appeared first on Becker’s Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis.