Partnerships in healthcare take many forms, from collaborations on projects on one end to complete mergers on the other. They are critical for fostering medical innovation, sharing best practices, exploiting unique opportunities at scale, and enhancing access to value-based care.
Unfortunately, many partnerships do not get to experience these results as they fail. Unsuccessful partnerships are detrimental to all organizations since they waste resources and damage relationships. A major reason for such failures is inadequate planning at the preparation and structuring stages of the partnership.
The preparation stage is when organizations identify potential partners, conduct due diligence, and initiate partnership discussions. Common pitfalls to avoid at the preparation stage are a lack of clarity about why the partnership is important and a limited appreciation of the opportunities presented by the partnership.
Healthcare organizations can avoid these pitfalls by identifying and clearly defining the objectives compelling them to partner. These usually fall between two areas: optimizing operations or minimizing costs and risks. For example, if an organization identifies opportunities for operations optimization, it can pursue these with partners, limiting its resource investments while positioning itself to benefit from positive outcomes.
On the other hand, if the healthcare organization is operating in an environment with a high level of uncertainty, it can partner with other healthcare organizations to conduct costly or risky programs. Because it has spread its risk, it can make multiple risky bets, facilitating innovation. Pharmaceutical companies do this a lot, partnering with each other and academic institutions on challenging drug and vaccine research and development projects.
Whichever objective the organization seeks to achieve through the partnership, it can only realize success if its staff buys into the vision. The organization’s leaders should lead from the front in their respective organizations, stressing the need for partnering. They must also reiterate this message to their partners across the board, emphasizing a shared mission and purpose.
The structuring stage comes after the parties agree to partner. When they draft their rules of engagement and create a structure for executing their joint mission. Pitfalls to avoid at the structuring phase are lack of clarity on the ownership of the partnership, failure to assign roles and identify key performance indicators (KPIs) to track, and neglecting to structure the partnership to achieve tax, accounting, and financing benefits.
Healthcare organizations should create a bridgeboard and an implementation team to sidestep these pitfalls. A bridgeboard is an oversight body that sets the tone for a productive partnership. It comprises professionals from the organizations that are coming together. It addresses key issues facing the partnership, such as operational and financial structuring, assigns roles and responsibilities, and develops a system to track progress. It is an authoritative body that can assess senior leaders steering the partnership. It must, however, only focus on big picture issues and not go down to day-to-day operations.
The implementation team is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the partnership. Members from the partnering institutions can form part of this team. They work full-time on the partnership, managing team members and fostering alignment to execute on the overall mission.
Deliberate preparation and effort are required to form and nurture partnerships. Healthcare organizations can increase their chances of successful partnerships by working with consultants. These are professionals who have overseen numerous partnerships, can anticipate obstacles, and can help the organizations collaborate more efficiently to unlock longer-term value opportunities.
Unfortunately, many partnerships do not get to experience these results as they fail. Unsuccessful partnerships are detrimental to all organizations since they waste resources and damage relationships. A major reason for such failures is inadequate planning at the preparation and structuring stages of the partnership.
The preparation stage is when organizations identify potential partners, conduct due diligence, and initiate partnership discussions. Common pitfalls to avoid at the preparation stage are a lack of clarity about why the partnership is important and a limited appreciation of the opportunities presented by the partnership.
Healthcare organizations can avoid these pitfalls by identifying and clearly defining the objectives compelling them to partner. These usually fall between two areas: optimizing operations or minimizing costs and risks. For example, if an organization identifies opportunities for operations optimization, it can pursue these with partners, limiting its resource investments while positioning itself to benefit from positive outcomes.
On the other hand, if the healthcare organization is operating in an environment with a high level of uncertainty, it can partner with other healthcare organizations to conduct costly or risky programs. Because it has spread its risk, it can make multiple risky bets, facilitating innovation. Pharmaceutical companies do this a lot, partnering with each other and academic institutions on challenging drug and vaccine research and development projects.
Whichever objective the organization seeks to achieve through the partnership, it can only realize success if its staff buys into the vision. The organization’s leaders should lead from the front in their respective organizations, stressing the need for partnering. They must also reiterate this message to their partners across the board, emphasizing a shared mission and purpose.
The structuring stage comes after the parties agree to partner. When they draft their rules of engagement and create a structure for executing their joint mission. Pitfalls to avoid at the structuring phase are lack of clarity on the ownership of the partnership, failure to assign roles and identify key performance indicators (KPIs) to track, and neglecting to structure the partnership to achieve tax, accounting, and financing benefits.
Healthcare organizations should create a bridgeboard and an implementation team to sidestep these pitfalls. A bridgeboard is an oversight body that sets the tone for a productive partnership. It comprises professionals from the organizations that are coming together. It addresses key issues facing the partnership, such as operational and financial structuring, assigns roles and responsibilities, and develops a system to track progress. It is an authoritative body that can assess senior leaders steering the partnership. It must, however, only focus on big picture issues and not go down to day-to-day operations.
The implementation team is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the partnership. Members from the partnering institutions can form part of this team. They work full-time on the partnership, managing team members and fostering alignment to execute on the overall mission.
Deliberate preparation and effort are required to form and nurture partnerships. Healthcare organizations can increase their chances of successful partnerships by working with consultants. These are professionals who have overseen numerous partnerships, can anticipate obstacles, and can help the organizations collaborate more efficiently to unlock longer-term value opportunities.
