Staffing for Accountable Care

Topics: Accountable Care, Market Trends, Strategy, Workforce Planning, Workforce

By reading this study, members will:

• Understand the consequences of allowing workforce planning to fall too far behind accountable care strategy 
• Identify the five key areas to proactively address when making an accountable care staffing strategy
• Learn how to translate strategy into operations, reinforce the administrative infrastructure, and develop cross-continuum competencies
  

Executive Summary

Staffing blind spots stymieing accountable care strategy

To meet the demands of emerging accountable payment models, hospitals and health systems must not only transform their strategy but also ensure the right people are in the right roles to execute it. Advisory Board analysis of leading provider organizations reveals a growing number of instances where staffing oversights have significantly delayed and even derailed a positive return on accountable care initiatives.

Key lessons on staffing for accountable care from early movers

This briefing helps close this risky disconnect between accountable care strategy and workforce planning. While it is still too early to offer a proven, universal staffing blueprint for hospitals and health systems, this briefing identifies five specific staffing blind spots concerning leadership accountability, support staff, and cross-continuum roles, which have compromised the accountable care initiatives of early movers. Further, corresponding HR strategies for proactively addressing each blind spot are introduced and triaged by their relevance to the principal accountable payment methodologies shifting risk for cost and quality to providers by varying degrees—pay-for-performance, bundled payment, and the shared savings model.

Additional implementation resources

Ensure you are logged in to advisory.com using your employer-issued email address, then click on the "Download PDF" option below the red topic tags to access the following job descriptions:

• ACO project director
• Case management referral specialist
• Case management payer specialist
• Transition coach
• Director of post-acute services health coach job description

Lessons from Early Adopters