From Strategy to Impact: Transforming Care Delivery
Health care is constantly evolving. New technologies, policies, payment models and medical advances all influence how organizations deliver — and how patients receive — care.
Hospitals — and the health care providers who work there — do incredible work every day to adapt to the changing health care environment and improve care for the patients and communities they serve. But their impact can be limited by fragmentation in the system. Teams within health care organizations are working to solve challenges, but strategies are often restricted to those teams rather than shared across the organization.
Real transformation demands coordinated, systemic change. Health care delivery is complex, and changing one piece does not shift the system. That is why we need to think broadly and holistically about what it takes to truly transform care.
Imagine the impact we could make on patient care and outcomes if we were able to align remarkable efforts across teams into a transformative strategy.
Imagine if we could take the best ideas out of the silos and weave them into an integrated whole — building on what we already have.
Imagine if we intentionally worked across departments and professions to create new habits that foster collaboration and build bridges across care settings.
Our health care system is at an inflection point. There is an opportunity to transform how care is designed and provided to better meet the myriad needs of the people we serve. The time to move toward a more connected, strategic approach is now.
The AHA’s Care Delivery Transformation Framework
The American Hospital Association is committed to helping hospitals and health systems navigate this journey. Our new Care Delivery Transformation Framework initiative supports hospitals through a multipronged approach:
- A conceptual vision. Show how foundational principles, infrastructure and care delivery strategies connect across clinical and community settings.
- Curated resources. Bring together expertise from across the AHA on each component of the framework.
- Discussion guide. Help spark meaningful conversations within teams and communities about what transformation will require.
Learning from leaders
During a session at the recent AHA Leadership Summit in Nashville, hospital leaders shared insights into how they are transforming care in their own organizations:
- Lisa Ishii, M.D., from Johns Hopkins Medicine focused on efforts in the clinical setting, sharing how they are leveraging technology-enabled care such as AI scribes for clinicians and virtual nursing programs. These efforts help reduce administrative burden and support professional growth for team members while fostering excellent patient care.
- Alison Gertel-Rosenberg from Nemours Children’s Health addressed how community-based strategies can support children’s health and well-being by meeting them where they are — often outside the hospital — and reminding us that there are “no dark lines” between care settings.
- Lara Pons, M.D., from Atrium Health Cabarrus’s Transition Clinic shared how community paramedics serve as the eyes and ears on the ground, bridging clinical and community care, building trust and understanding patients in the context of their lives.
These leaders are proving that transformation is possible — but only when we work intentionally and strategically to bring stakeholders together.
Creating our future health care system
As health care systems chart the path forward, the challenge — and the opportunity — will be to approach transformation with strategic intent. This will involve aligning internal and external stakeholders and building system-wide competencies. Hospital and health system leaders will need to think differently, partner differently and care differently.
Over the coming months, the AHA will expand its library of tools, resources and case studies to support your care transformation journey. And we want to showcase the innovative work your hospital is doing to transform care.
Together, we can build stronger systems to deliver better, more connected care for every patient.
Learn more about the Care Delivery Transformation Framework at www.aha.org/CDT.
Julia J. Resnick is the senior director in the division of health outcomes and care transformation at the American Hospital Association.