Thoughts from Byron Jobe
Why organizational adaptability is becoming healthcare's next competitive advantage
One of the conversations I have most often with health system leaders isn't about whether healthcare is changing. Everyone agrees that it is. The question is how to build an organization that can keep changing with it.
Demand is shifting across care settings, workforce pressures persist, and new technologies are reshaping expectations. Vizient's Impact of Change forecast shows outpatient volumes are projected to grow approximately 20% over the next decade, while inpatient days continue to increase as patients become older and more medically complex. Home health is projected to grow 27% and virtual care utilization will continue to expand across both acute and chronic care pathways. Rather than replacing traditional care, these settings are adding to overall demand.
Organizations aren't managing one change at a time. They're managing many at once.
The ones that perform best will be those that recognize change early and adjust before it becomes a problem.
Adaptability is becoming a defining capability of high performance, and the most effective organizations share four common behaviors.
Highly adaptable organizations pay attention to trends long before they become operational challenges.
They watch how patients access care. They monitor workforce trends, payer mix, emerging technologies, and changes in consumer expectations. Small shifts often reveal where larger changes are headed.
Take virtual care. A few years ago, many organizations viewed virtual visits primarily as a replacement for office appointments. Today's data tells a different story. Total evaluation and management visits are projected to increase nearly 20% over the next decade, with virtual care accounting for 20% of all visits. Virtual care isn't replacing traditional care. It's expanding overall demand.
Organizations that recognized that trend early had more time to rethink physician capacity, staffing models, and digital investments.
The earlier leaders recognize change, the more options they have.
Healthcare has never been easy to predict.
That's why the strongest organizations don't build strategy around a single forecast. They prepare for several plausible futures.
They consider different assumptions around policy, technology, demographics, and market competition, then identify decisions that position them well regardless of which path unfolds.
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center offers a good example of this mindset. Leaders recognized that growing demand couldn't be met simply by asking their academic physicians to see more patients. They created a community primary care practice staffed primarily by advanced practice providers, expanding access while allowing academic physicians to remain focused on teaching, research and complex patient care.
They applied the same thinking in specialty care by creating rapid-access clinics for cardiology and oncology patients who needed timely evaluation but not an emergency department visit or inpatient admission. Rather than waiting until capacity became a constraint, they redesigned care delivery ahead of demand.
Organizations can’t eliminate uncertainty, but they can make decisions today that leave them better prepared for whatever comes next.
Even the best strategy struggles when different parts of an organization are moving in different directions.
The organizations that adapt well create alignment across strategy, finance, operations, and clinical leadership before major decisions are made. Everyone is working from the same data, the same assumptions, and the same priorities.
Redesigning care rarely happens within one department. It requires leaders across the organization to agree not only on where the market is heading, but how the organization should respond.
Many organizations respond quickly to change, but fewer respond together. Alignment gives organizations the confidence to act before opportunities become challenges.
Understanding change is only valuable if it leads to action.
The most adaptable organizations continually ask whether today's operating model still reflects tomorrow's patient needs.
Tampa General's Think Ambulatory First initiative reflects this mindset. Appropriate patients who no longer require acute inpatient care can continue IV therapies or complete additional diagnostic workups in an ambulatory setting while remaining connected to their care team. Rather than assuming every step of care had to happen inside the hospital, leaders redesigned the care journey around what patients actually needed.
Organizations are applying this same thinking in many ways, from expanding ambulatory services and strengthening home-based care to building new partnerships and creating new models of care.
Demand will continue to shift. Organizations that regularly rethink where and how care is delivered will be better positioned to keep pace.
Healthcare leaders can't control every policy decision, technological breakthrough or market disruption.
What they can control is how prepared their organizations are to respond.
Adaptability deserves to be considered alongside quality, operational excellence and financial performance as a defining characteristic of high-performing organizations. It's the capability that allows health systems to sustain strong performance, even as the environment around them continues to change.
Vizient President and Chief Executive Officer
Byron Jobe is president and chief executive officer of Vizient. Jobe has broad and diverse leadership experience in the healthcare industry, including in the areas of strategy, operations and finance. Prior to becoming CEO in 2018, Jobe served in a variety of roles at Vizient, Healthvision, VHA, Baylor Scott & White Health and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
