10 Learnings from HFMA's 2023 Spring Thought Leadership Retreat

Disruption is reverberating throughout the healthcare industry, and it’s incumbent on legacy organizations to develop strategic responses for the benefit of their consumers, their communities, and themselves. With that overarching challenge becoming ever more pressing, HFMA’s 2023 Spring Thought Leadership Retreat brought together leaders from across the industry May 4-5 in Atlanta to consider approaches that can help hospitals and health systems fortify their positions.

Disruption is “a topic that’s both timely and critical to the future of healthcare,” past HFMA President and CEO Joseph J. Fifer (retired June 6) said as he kicked off the gathering. The pressures stem both from industrywide forces such as the labor crunch and from the ingenuity and dexterity of disruptive entities. Perhaps most notably, such companies tend to be more intentional than traditional providers about creating optimal experiences for consumers.

“We are not as focused on the consumer experience as we need to be,” Fifer told attendees at the end of the retreat. “I would just encourage you to go back to your organizations and have that conversation. There are big, massively capitalized entities that are focused on the consumer experience. And if we’re not [similarly focused] as an industry, I think we’re making a big mistake.”

Reflecting on the question of whether disruptors can turn a profit in the healthcare space, Fifer said, “I believe that they will, and I believe they’re going to come right after that consumer experience. ”The concept of culture affects an organization’s ability to make the necessary adjustments, he added.

“What is culture in an organization? It’s a collective reflection of attitude,” Fifer said. “If the attitude that we take back to our organizations is that we really do care about keeping people healthy, we really do care about the consumer experience, we really do care about that electronic front door and making it as simple, as easy and accessible as using our phones, it will start to change the perception. “And ultimately the trust in our organization, trust in our healthcare system, will begin to reverse this trend that we’ve been on.”

The retreat highlighted the key challenges and opportunities for stakeholders trying to navigate an industry being swept by change.

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