Service Business Model Innovation, the second case study from our recently published book chapter

As we a couple weeks ago, M2HCC authored a chapter entitled “Essential Characteristics of Service Business Model Innovation in Healthcare: A Case-Study Approach” in Service Business Model Innovation in Healthcare and Hospital Management published by Springer. Today we share highlights from the second case study we feature in the chapter.

The BJC Collaborative
BJC HealthCare is based in St. Louis, Missouri and includes Barnes-Jewish Hospital and St. Louis Children’s Hospital. It is one of the largest nonprofit healthcare organizations in the U.S. and it is the largest provider of charity care in the state of Missouri. In 2012, Saint Luke’s Health System in Kansas City, Missouri, and CoxHealth in Springfield, Missouri, and Memorial Health System in Springfield, Illinois, joined BJC to form The BJC Collaborative. Over the past few years, four more organizations joined the Collaborative and members have combined annual revenues of over $9.3 billion but remain independent, serving residents of Illinois, Kansas, and Missouri.

The BJC Collaborative has three primary focus areas: 1) Implementing clinical programs and services to improve access to and quality of health care for patients; 2) Lowering health care costs and creating additional efficiencies that will be beneficial to patients and the communities served by the member organizations; and 3) Achieving cost savings. (BJC Collaborative 2016)

We talked with Sandra Van Trease*, group president of BJC HealthCare about how trust, cooperation and leadership have helped the Collaborative increase innovation year after year.

Common values and previous relationships
The importance of trust and relationships is on point, especially in this kind of organization, where entities are coming together as a collaborative, explained Van Trease. For example, the senior leadership of these organizations knew each other before the Collaborative was formed. “We already knew each other, we knew each entity was high performing, we held similar values, we all recognized a need for evolution and change in the healthcare system,” said Van Trease. Common values were a key component to building the Collaborative.

Service priorities should matter to staff and leadership
While it is clear that leadership and strong relationships drove the creation of the Collaborative, the process the Collaborative uses to determine priorities is also driven by a structure built on trust and leadership. It is essential to set service priorities that matter to both staff and leadership, not just one or the other.

Get results to improve results
Notably, Van Trease explained that getting results also helped to build trust, which in turn, drove improved results. High-performing systems are like competitive athletes, always wanting to improve and set higher goals. Getting results makes people more likely to trust each other, and the process, creating momentum that generates further progress, explained Van Trease.

Communicate what works
Finally, and one of the unique components of the four case studies M2 wrote, Van Trease explained that it is essential to celebrate and share successes and best practices that can be replicated is essential. At the BJC Collaborative, there is a dedicated communications roundtable that captures this information, writes it up, and then disseminates it to each local health system.

Talk to your team, then have them talk to each other. Have leaders work in close connection with team members. On paper, it doesn’t seem that difficult, but in practice, the BJC Collaborative worked hard to build trust, increase cooperation and show leadership to create a truly innovative service approach for their area of the United States.

*Blessing Health System in Quincy, Illinois (2013), Southern Illinois Healthcare in Carbondale, Illinois (2013), Sarah Bush Lincoln Health System of Mattoon, Illinois (2015), and Decatur Memorial Hospital in Decatur, Illinois (2016).

*Sandra Van Trease serves as a group president for BJC HealthCare, and provides strategic leadership and direction to the BJC Collaborative. In 2012, Van Trease was appointed president of BJC HealthCare’s Accountable Care Organization and leads BJC’s overall efforts in Population Health.