Data on the Edge
Destination services — defined as hospital services patients travel greater than 150 miles to receive — remain a strategic growth priority, especially for academic medical centers (AMCs) and children’s hospitals. Historically, destination services have been driven by strong hospital and health system brand reputation, renowned physicians, and world-class research and clinical trial opportunity and expertise. Yet today, in a dynamic landscape shaped by rising healthcare consumer costs, elevated capabilities at community and regional centers, and the growth of virtual care services, patients have more choice, disrupting traditional destination care models.
To continue to grow this service offering, hospitals and health system leaders should deeply understand market trends, clinical growth trajectories, and quality and cost performance benchmarks that underlie the destination care opportunity. In an increasingly competitive landscape, targeted identification of high-performance services with the potential to increase access and draw patients from a wider radius is essential for long-term viability. Otherwise, financial sustainability, consumer satisfaction and brand reputation will be threatened.
The draw for destination services goes beyond a hospital’s traditional primary and secondary service areas, which are typically used to measure market share. Trends within Vizient’s destination services database show that travel rates for destination services are consistent. Recent analysis compared 2024 data with 2021 data and illustrated the overall national travel rate for inpatient discharges is 4% for adults and 5% for pediatrics. Among those traveling over 150 miles for care, 59% of adults and 45% of pediatric patients traveled more than 300 miles. On average, 50% of travel volume for the top 10 US destination healthcare centers comes from more than 300 miles away. Figure 1 shows rates broken down by service line along with the top volume destinations for each.
Destination service performance varies significantly by organization. The following example uses a fictitious organization to illustrate how market trends and performance metrics influence destination opportunity and what strategic actions can help sustain or grow them.
The Great State Cancer Institute experienced a 6% increase in destination volumes from Q1 2021 to Q3 2024, with 55% originating from within its home state and 45% from out-of-state and international patients. This growth reflects the institute’s targeted strategies aligned with expanding subspecialized services and expertise, strengthening its strategic reach across regional, national and international markets and adapting to evolving patient demand patterns.
As illustrated in Table 2, the organization is well positioned to expand its footprint, with strong growth trajectories in both inpatient tertiary and outpatient cancer services. However, while its length of stay and direct cost indices remain above peer benchmarks, improving 30-day readmission rates will be critical to defending market share and sustaining destination volume, given these patients travel more than 150 miles to seek care.
Justin Cassidy, PhD; Kara Marlatt, PhD; Kelsey Markovich; Rhae Gamber and Setu Shah
To speak with one of our experts about destination services, cancer services, AMC and children’s hospital strategies, email membercenter@vizientinc.com.
This report’s analysis leverages the following proprietary data and analytics assets.
Sg2® Intelligence is a diverse team of subject matter experts and thought leaders who represent specialties ranging from clinical service lines to enterprise strategy. The team develops strategy-specific content in the form of editorial reports, including the Data on the Edge series, and perspective-based analytics, such as the Impact of Change® forecast.
The Sg2 Claims Data Warehouse is a best-in-class integration of payer-sourced longitudinal claims and provider-sourced clearinghouse data, providing maximum available all-payer activity in every market. Capturing healthcare utilization for 215+ million unique patients annually, it represents >70% of the total insured population in the United States. Data enrichments informed by Vizient data scientists, clinical experts and thought leaders are integrated within the data, preserving data integrity while contextualizing it to create powerful analytical solutions.
The Vizient Destination Care Data Set, powered by the Sg2 Claims Data Warehouse, provides visibility into patient travel patterns across the country. Sg2 segments patients by the distance they travel for different services at the disease and procedure level. Distance groupings are as follows, in miles: 0-50, 51-100, 101-150, 151-200, 201-250, 251-300, and 300+.
The Sg2 Inpatient Portfolio was created in collaboration leveraging the analytical expertise of Vizient data scientists, vetted by clinical leaders and strategically honed by the Vizient Strategy Intelligence research team. The grouper translates MS-DRG discharges to six acuity-based subtypes:
Sg2 also developed a pediatric-specific inpatient portfolio to help children’s hospitals drive intentional changes in their patient mix.
The Sg2 CARE Grouper is Sg2’s proprietary methodology that organizes data across all sites into standardized, clinically relevant categories. It amalgamates ICD-10 diagnosis codes into clinically pertinent disease categories, which are then organized into broader service lines and service line groups. It also groups ICD-10 codes and CPT/HCPCS procedure codes into inpatient and outpatient procedure categories, respectively. These categories facilitate a standardized approach to tracking patient volumes and service utilization seamlessly across inpatient and outpatient settings. The Sg2 CARE Grouper is foundational for our analytics offerings and also serves as a stand-alone product that health systems rely on to manage their organizational data efficiently.
The Vizient Clinical Data Base (CDB) is the definitive healthcare analytics platform for performance improvement. The CDB provides high-quality, accurate and transparent data on patient outcomes—such as mortality, length of stay, complication and readmission rates, and hospital-acquired conditions—that enable hospitals to benchmark against peers; identify, accelerate and sustain improvements; reduce variation; and expedite data collection to fulfill agency reporting requirements. Clinical benchmarking tools such as dashboards, simulation calculators, and templated and customizable reports enable you to quickly identify improvement opportunities and their potential impact.
Sg2’s Impact of Change® model forecasts demand for healthcare services over the next decade, examining the cumulative effects and interdependencies of key impact factors driving change in utilization. Using both disease-based and DRG-based analyses, the forecast provides a comprehensive picture of how patients will access inpatient and outpatient services along the continuum of care.
Vizient Intelligence is a diverse team of subject matter experts and thought leaders who represent specialties ranging from clinical service lines to enterprise strategy. The team develops strategy-specific content in the form of editorial reports, including the Data on the Edge series, and perspective-based analytics, such as the Impact of Change® forecast.
