For the past three years, Kaufman Hall has surveyed hospitals and health systems on their performance improvement and cost transformation efforts. This year, these efforts met an historic challenge with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic’s impacts have been severe. Entire service lines were shut down as state governments required or strongly encouraged suspension of elective and non-emergency procedures, in part to conserve critical resources—including personal protective equipment—in the early days of the pandemic. Supply chains were disrupted, with organizations that had come to rely on “just in time” inventory practices scrambling to secure the resources needed to ensure the safety of patients and frontline clinical staff. The healthcare workforce came under incredible pressure, confronting a crisis that threatened to overwhelm the health system’s capacity to treat patients.
In a year unlike any other, our annual survey moved away from the questions of earlier years. We have focused on the impacts of COVID-19 on hospital and health system performance. Then, through interviews with survey respondents on the front line of the battle with COVID-19, we have sought to understand how health system leaders are seeking to find a path forward amid uncertainty that will likely stretch through 2021, if not beyond.
Key findings from this year’s report include the following:
- Financial viability. Approximately three fourths of survey respondents are either extremely (22%) or moderately (52%) concerned about the financial viability of their organization in the absence of an effective vaccine or treatment.
- Operating margins. One third of our respondents saw year-over-year operating margin declines in excess of 100% from Q2 2019 to Q2 2020.
- Volumes. Volumes in most service areas are recovering slowly. In only one area—oncology—have a majority of our respondents seen volumes return to more than 90% of pre-pandemic levels.
- Expenses. A majority of survey respondents have seen their greatest percentage expense increase in the costs of supplying personal protective equipment. Nursing staff labor is in second place, cited by 34% of respondents as their most significant area of expense increase.
- Healthcare workforce. Three fourths of survey respondents have increased monitoring and resources to address staff burnout and mental health concerns.
- Telehealth. More than half of our respondents have seen the number of telehealth visits at their organization increase by more than 100% since the pandemic began. Payment disparities between telehealth and in-person visits are seen as the greatest obstacle to more widespread adoption of telehealth.
- Competition. Approximately one third of survey respondents believe the pandemic has affected competitive dynamics in their market by making consumers more likely to seek care at retail-based clinics.
