Sg2 Blog

A new vision for health systems is emerging, where ambulatory care, enabled by mobile and digital tools, becomes the financial and operational backbone of the health system. Yet hospital-centric business models and mindsets so far have blocked progress. To flip the paradigm, health systems must focus on four transformation levers: financial growth, leadership and governance, capital allocation, an...

The Fairview Health Services Chief Strategy Officer outlines how a successful, data-driven strategy must align with an organization’s strengths, deliver positive margins, and enhance care quality, safety and patient experience. Sameer Badlani, Chief Strategy Officer at Fairview Health Services, believes building better health care is more about what you shouldn’t do than what you sho...

This year’s Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics Update: A Report of US and Global Data From the AHA highlighted several striking trends. Released in January, the report underscores ongoing challenges and disparities in stroke care. Source: Martin S et al. Circulation. 2025. What does this mean for stroke care? Greater emphasis on targeted prevention among high-risk populations will be impe...

Disrupters have accelerated their presence, filling access gaps across the continuum with lower-cost, consumer-friendly options. What started as niche convenience has become a competing infrastructure. Increasingly, traditional systems are adopting similar strategies, including scaling ambulatory footprints, integrating payer partnerships and digitizing access. The market is less divided between ...

 Jordan Dale, MD, is the chief medical information officer (CMIO) and inaugural chief health AI officer of Houston Methodist, based in Houston. Q: Let’s start by learning a bit about your background. How did your career path evolve and what led you to Houston Methodist? I was an engineer by training before I went to medical school, so I think I was programmed at an early stage in my car...

Conversations with health care industry partners increasingly focus on how they can better engage their customers. It isn’t enough to just speak to current trends; the key to standing out with providers is offering unique, data-backed insights aligned to their priorities. Deeper relationships require deeper commitment. Margins are tight, resources stretched and capacity constrained. Health ...

  Diane Maas is the chief strategy and digital transformation officer of Beacon Health System, based in South Bend, Indiana. Q: Let’s start by learning more about you—what’s your background and what brought you to your current role at Beacon Health? I wrote my thesis in college on the HMO industry, which led to my first job in health care, working for Blue Cross Blue Shi...

Indirect spend and purchased services─IT, facilities, support services, and more─now represent around 20-25% of a health system’s total spend, according to Vizient Supply Analytics data. With clinical margins tightening, leaders must work to control these costs. Several challenges can make that difficult. Fragmentation and silos: Overlapping vendors and inconsistent contracts reduce lev...

As 2026 begins, health system leaders face no shortage of headwinds—margin pressure, volatile payer dynamics and persistent regulatory whiplash. Yet focusing exclusively on constraints obscures a more important truth: across the industry, meaningful momentum is building. Over the past year, progressive organizations have demonstrated that bold, system-wide transformation is not only possible...

Editor's note: Hannah Murphy, Lead, Analytics & Insights and Alyssa Harris, Associate Principal, Analytics & Insights also contributed to this blog post. Welcome to the inaugural post of our Pediatric Research at Vizient blog series. This series highlights some of our latest findings in pediatric medicine and incorporates analysis leveraging the Vizient® Clinical Data Base to supp...