Key Takeaways
- Orthopedic services offer significant growth potential for health systems, driven by shifting care sites and increased patient eligibility.
Orthopedics is fast emerging as the strategic frontier for health system growth in the U.S.—but what does that really mean for executive leaders, strategy teams, and forward-thinking professionals? With shifts in care settings, exploding patient eligibility, and unprecedented volume trends, orthopedic services sit at the intersection of clinical innovation and business sustainability. As health systems grapple with integration challenges, M&A volatility, and the urgent need for actionable market intelligence, few voices are as insightful as Donnelle Jageman, Senior Director, Intelligence at Sg2 (a Vizient company). In a recent episode of The American Journal of Healthcare Strategy podcast, Jageman unpacked her journey from first-generation college student to national thought leader in orthopedic intelligence, and explained how health systems can use deep analytics to navigate today’s high-stakes environment.
Why does orthopedic intelligence matter now? Because every executive is facing a deluge of data, shifting consumer demands, and increasing competition—not just for market share, but for relevance. As Jageman explains, “There’s so much happening in orthopedics from site-of-care shift to increased patient eligibility for procedures that make it a really exciting area right now.” This article breaks down her advice, lessons from the field, and practical takeaways for leaders who need a clear-eyed approach to growth, risk, and innovation.
How does a non-traditional background shape a healthcare strategist? Donnelle Jageman’s story proves that interdisciplinary roots can create uniquely effective leaders in healthcare intelligence. She didn’t start with a healthcare degree—instead, she triple-majored in Environmental Studies, German, and Psychology at Washington & Jefferson College.
“As a child, I was one of those kids that was like a fan of the show ER and Strong Medicine… I wasn’t quite interested in being the doctor but I was like, ‘What if I was the person in charge?’”
Her foray into healthcare administration came through curiosity, not convention. It was during her undergrad studies—piecing together insights from psychology, environmental science, and sociology—that she realized the interdisciplinary demands of healthcare strategy mirrored her academic journey.
Interdisciplinary Value: Healthcare strategy demands skills in finance, revenue cycle, clinical knowledge, and medical group management—mirroring the blend in Environmental Studies of bench science, economics, and psychology.
Transferable Skills: “It was easy transitioning academically… and it still fulfills me to this day,” Jageman shared, highlighting that success doesn’t demand a healthcare-specific undergraduate degree.
Sustainability Connection: “Healthcare is as an industry one of the worst polluters,” Jageman said, underlining how her background informs a broader awareness of healthcare’s social responsibilities.
Takeaway: Executive leaders should value diverse academic backgrounds in their strategy hires—adaptability and broad thinking often beat narrowly technical resumes.
What’s the real value of administrative fellowships and residencies for future strategy leaders? According to Jageman, early-career opportunities like residencies are essential, especially for those without healthcare internships or prior industry experience.
“That was actually my first internship experience and my first exposure to healthcare and to strategy. I was very fortunate to work under the chief strategist at Mount Nittany Health.”
Her administrative residency at Penn State—a crucial internship before her second year—offered her the chance to learn directly from executive strategists. She not only gained technical skills, but also built relationships and credibility that would anchor her career.
Generalist Skills Pay Off: Jageman notes, “So many of us are generalists or specialists in one of those areas but really it’s about the culmination of all those skills.”
Seek Out High-Level Exposure: “When you go to these smaller places…I find in my experience you actually get higher-level experience. There are more doors open to you.”
Strategic Networking: Working closely with C-suite leaders and VPs at a smaller system “opened more doors and offered exposure to real decision-making.”
Actionable Insight: For emerging leaders, target roles where you’re close to executive decision-makers and given stretch assignments—even if the organization isn’t a household name.
What does strategy consulting really look like, and how does it differ from internal strategy roles? Jageman’s career traversed both worlds, moving from health systems to consulting and back again.
“Strategists—even if you’re working in a health system—you tend to have a consultancy role, even if that’s not your title… you’re constantly touching different parts of the organization.”
Consensus Building: Consultants help synthesize diverse viewpoints, “often are the consensus builders and facilitators of discussion.”
Market Analysis: From market share analyses to medical staff development, consultants bring an outside-in view. “You’re hoping to provide direction for the organization and there are so many parts of that strategic planning process…”
Project Management: Even as an “internal consultant,” Jageman managed multiple projects, timelines, and deliverables.
After years in consulting, Jageman returned to the provider side to “get closer to the decisions that were being made and then the consequences of them.” She highlights the difference: “As a consultant… you kind of get to wipe your hands and leave at the end of the day… but really it’s up to the folks doing the work to implement the strategies.”
Direct Answer: Leaders should recognize that strategy is both a function (internal or external) and a mindset. The best strategists—consultant or not—are consensus-builders, project managers, and trusted advisors.
Why do so many health system acquisitions fail in the integration phase? Jageman’s experience at Tower Health highlights the reality: even after a successful acquisition, the real work begins with integration, and most systems are unprepared.
“There’s such a hurdle to integrate systems right—even throughout Tower Health we had five different medical staffs, five different credentialing or three different credentials eventually… every time you had to move a physician or add them they had to go through such a lengthy process.”
Resource Constraints: Merging EMRs, aligning credentials, and standardizing processes take significant human and financial capital.
Cultural Inertia: “You have this staff of physicians and providers and nurses… who have a culture and a history… and human behaviorists just not wanting to let go of that stuff.”
Leadership Gaps: Integration requires relentless consensus building, negotiation, and the willingness to push through inevitable resistance.
How can strategy and intelligence leaders do better? Leverage psychology and behavioral insights, prioritize communication, and plan for a multi-year integration timeline—don’t assume alignment will happen on its own.
What does intelligence mean in healthcare, and why are teams like Sg2’s increasingly vital? For many, “intelligence” conjures images of espionage, but in healthcare it’s about distilling vast, noisy datasets into actionable insights.
“Intelligence is really about taking all the noise… technology, the economy, how we care for patients through clinical pathways and coordination… and wrapping that up into thought leadership.”
Demand-Based Forecasting: Sg2’s flagship product, the Impact of Change forecast, “is a proprietary, demand-based forecast for healthcare… we forecast tens of thousands of procedures and visit types, across both inpatient and outpatient settings, and we do it every year on a 10-year basis.”
Data Integration: They aggregate “comprehensive claims data… clinical database… and operational database that collect dozens and dozens of data points for hundreds of health systems across the country.”
Market Sensing: “I spend time even watching orthopedic surgeons on Instagram to see what they’re talking about… what journal articles they’re citing or what issues they’re seeing in their market.”
Jageman is clear: “Imagine trying to do that at a health system level and have the depth of knowledge that we have… especially some of the more intricate service lines like cardiovascular or neurosciences… we have experts dedicated to so many areas.” Sg2’s team alone is over 60 people.
Direct Answer: Intelligence in healthcare requires specialized, dedicated resources and cross-functional expertise that most internal strategy teams simply can’t afford or replicate.
How do intelligence and consulting firms like Sg2 avoid conflicts of interest when serving multiple competitors in the same region? The answer is a blend of strict operational boundaries and professional ethics.
“If we had two health systems in the same market that were competitors, which often happens… we have actually separate teams that deal with those… and we often blind stuff even if examples are from a different market.”
Account Team Segmentation: Separate account teams handle different clients in the same market.
Data Blinding: “Even if it’s from a different market… we’re never saying without permission ‘Smith Health told me this’… always ‘another one of our members.’”
Networking Only With Consent: “If a health system wants to share… we may connect them with another, but only after explicit permission.”
Jageman notes, “We never want to violate that trust and I really think that everyone should work under that premise.” For executives considering a partner, these guardrails should be non-negotiable.
How accurate is Sg2’s forecast, and how do they keep their intelligence relevant as the market evolves? The answer is a blend of machine learning, historical data, and constant, boots-on-the-ground research.
“Over the years it’s been shown to be pretty accurate actually… they kind of do retrospective studies every now and then… and it has changed a lot over the years. It grows every year… adding new procedures, categories…”
Continuous Improvement: Each year brings new data, procedure types, and refinement to the model.
Human Expertise: “There’s a more… artistry, right, where… you go to the annual American Academy of Orthopedics meeting… identify trends and new technology.”
Collaboration Across Teams: “I often collaborate with our leads of Ambulatory Surgery and General Surgery to work on things like site-of-care shift… now most total joint replacements are done outpatient.”
Direct Answer: The future of healthcare intelligence is hybrid—data science powers the models, but real-world observation and domain expertise anchor the insights.
Is it realistic for U.S. health systems to build their own intelligence or market strategy departments? The short answer: at a local level, maybe. At a national or enterprise level, the resource demands are prohibitive.
“I feel like I was doing this on a market level when I worked at health systems… but from a national perspective or even regionally, this is a lot—it’s a lot of work… which is why we have almost 60 or over 60 people on Sg2’s intelligence team.”
Internal Teams: Good for local market sensing, tactical initiatives, and competitive monitoring.
External Partners: Essential for longitudinal forecasting, benchmarking, and navigating highly specialized service lines.
Direct Answer: Smart systems blend internal capability with external depth—build an internal function for rapid response, but lean on national partners for forecasting, benchmarks, and subject matter expertise.
The world of healthcare strategy and intelligence is growing more complex by the month. Orthopedics is a case study for why robust intelligence is non-negotiable: care settings shift, patient needs change, and system integration falters without data-driven leadership. Donnelle Jageman’s journey, from academic generalist to Senior Director, Intelligence at Sg2 Vizient, demonstrates the value of cross-disciplinary thinking, strategic patience, and relentless learning.
Actionable Insight: If you’re an executive leader or aspiring strategist, invest in multidisciplinary development, prioritize transparency and ethical boundaries in your intelligence partnerships, and never underestimate the power of collaborative, data-driven decision-making. The future of healthcare strategy will be built by those who turn noise into knowledge—and action.
<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy I'm joined by a special guest a director of intelligence DaNell jagman please introduce yourself Donell hi Cole thanks for having me today uh my name is Donell jagman I'm a director of intelligence at sg2 which is a sub company of visiant um and in my role I actually specialize in Orthopedics [Music] very exciting Orthopedics I've heard is a big area for this intelligence and strategy work yeah Orthopedics often is an area of growth um and a lot of opportunity her health systems um and along the entire spectrum of hospitals um every everyone from Community Health Systems to academic medical centers um and it's really area of um volume growth too there's so much happening in Orthopedics from sight of care shift um to increase patient eligibility for procedures that make it a really exciting area right now that's very I actually was not aware of that at all I I had seen a few organizations who specialized in that but I didn't know why so that's interesting um you you got an mha originally right and I want to ask what caused you to get that why did you go in that direction it's really interesting because um I'm actually a first generation college student um in college graduate now and when I was in undergraduate at a liberal arts college called Washington and Jefferson College I actually triple majored um and none of them were exactly healthcare related um I started with Environmental Studies and German and then actually added on psychology um to my Majors as well and as a child I was one of those kids that was like a fan of the show ER and um strong medicine which was on Lifetime um I'm sure that's more of a niche show for people and I wasn't quite interested in being the doctor but I was like What if I was the person in charge and as I was going through undergrad I didn't really know that it was possible to study healthc care administration and to people in our field I'm sure that sounds crazy right because we like oh I have a bachelor in healthcare administration or I have an mha now um so I just went and studied things that I found were very interesting um and I'm very thankful for having studied those because it actually brought me back to what I was interested in which was how um our community's health status relates to our ability to care for the environment and that's really where I got back to okay I am still interested in health care in this way and then I was taking these like really interesting psychology classes like industrial organizational and organizational behavior and then I started looking at graduate programs and I found healthcare administration and I knew that was what I wanted to do that makes a lot of sense because it's those kind of uh areas of psychology I think that make really good organizational leaders as well as when you have that high level of emotional intelligence yeah and I like how you connected that to the environmental health we we had another environmental health graduate on who went on to her mha and it seems like it's a good area to gain kind of a more macro perspective effective it's very interdisciplinary just like healthcare administration is when you're taking um in healthcare administration finance and revenue cycle and the clinical aspects and strategy um and medical group management and all of these things and so many of us are generalists or specialists in one of those areas but really it's about the culmination of all those skills and in Environmental Studies you're doing kind of the same thing where you're taking things like bench science and sociology and environmental psychology and economics and that's what makes up Environmental Studies so it was easy transitioning academically um and also just from my um kind of innate natural skills um and it still fulfills me to this day um what I also find interesting about it and I don't specifically work in the area of sustainability and Healthcare but Healthcare is as an industry one of the worst polluters we create so much waste and use so much energy um so even though you know I work isn't directly related to that it's all kind of flowed together over the years absolutely yeah very cool I also appreciate that because it it helps show that whatever major you decide in undergrad it will help connect to what you're doing now which is very cool um you went on you got your mha and then during that is this your fir you know this uh administrative residency uh I believe is what it was called right at the time is that your first introduction I knew that you were a planning analyst you worked in in strategy there is that your first introduction to strategy so in my ma program in um at Penn State the administrative residency is that internship you do before your first and second year on a residential program that's what they called it I'm sure other programs call it different things um and that really was my first exposure to even working in a health system um I spent my time in undergrad studying abroad and um you know taking classes during the winter semester related to Environmental Studies I didn't do any internships or anything um so that was actually my first internship experience and my first exposure to healthcare and to strategy I was very fortunate to um work under the chief strategist at Mount nney Health um who was actually an adjunct faculty at Penn State as well and um at the time there wasn't a planning analyst there so I was serving as the planning analyst all summer um and then when the fall came he was like you can't leave um so I um I found a way to work with the University where my um teaching assistantship stiens was actually used to support my work at Mount nney Health um and they shared the financial burden of that between the university in the health system um so that I could continue to get experience um and so that there was a stronger relationship between the local health system and um Penn State I was at Penn State University Park and um for those who are not familiar that's not where the hospital is that's not where Hershey Medical Center is oh really um so Penn State is in State College the medical center is in Hershey Pennsylvania so the medical center in in State College where um all the majority of the students are is actually a community hospital um an independent community hospital and so it was really awesome to strengthen that relationship while also getting so much experience there no absolutely that is a very incredible experience working right under that that individual and being able to extend it out with that extra experience you still decided to go on to do an administrative Fellowship after your mha right yeah I thought it was critical for me because I definitely had less experience than other folks in my cohort when it came to internships and even just working in healthcare so many students and this is great that they had this opportunity you know shadowed Physicians or you know had some other kind of undergraduate level internship experience and I also wasn't sure what I wanted to do still I knew that I really like strategy but that's such a difficult area to get into um there's so few positions and over the years they have become even fewer and fewer um as systems consolidate and really pair down their internal strategy teams um so I decided to go do a fellowship um I thought it would be a great opportunity to see different parts of the organization as well because at Mount Indy I was really just dedicated to the strategy department and during that Fellowship did you get exposure to more kind of strategy areas or or was it more general what was you know how did that benefit you yeah it was very high level and I always point this out um to folks that I talk to because um sperberg Regional isn't a national name in healthc care like the Cleveland Clinic or you know mayo or something um but when you go to these smaller places I find in my experience and when I talk to other folks you actually get higher level experience there are more doors open to you um and I was very fortunate Spartenburg that my preceptors were the Chief Operating Officer of the entire health system and the president of of the flagship Medical Center um so I spent all my time with these folks and I really most of my time with the vice president cohort there um so I had a lot of exposure to Medical Group management and the strategy around that including um transactions acquiring new practices which um to my surprise would help me later on in a different position in my career um and then I also got exposure to um acquiring a bankrupt Hospital in their Market um so when I was there um spart andberg Regional was looking at acquiring Union Hospital um and they had declared bankruptcy so I was involved in those discussions and got exposure to the conversations around what that would take as well that does make a lot of sense what you're saying with your director of physician acquisition and integration so that makes a lot of sense and and so what you've done is you know you went from there to try house and then you went to verlon uh I know one of the the leaders there very uh in like very good consulting company they have you a huge amount of knowledge what was that jump from Health System to Consulting because you hadn't done Consulting prior to that right yeah I hadn't but I would say that strategists even if you're working in a health system and I think my title at um try health was project consultant um you tend to have a consultancy role even if that's not your title and even if you're an internal person because you're constantly touching different parts of the organization in a strategy role whether you have a project for the medical group or something for a service line or you're doing something system level and you're often put in these project management roles as well even if that's not your role um to help convene opinions and drive consensus and provide information and keep these timelines rolling so over the years I had built this like level of consultancy skill anyway um and I was very excited to join verlon because they also have a really wide breadth of consultancy um where obviously they are um the uh new home years ago of the Legacy consultancy health strategies and solutions and Alan Zuckerman who was the CEO of um health strategies wrote the book on Healthcare strategy um so I was thrilled to go work there and be able to work with him before his retirement um and get a lot of exposure to um more mergers and Acquisitions and transactions but also things that I hadn't really experienced like physician compensation and fair market valuation um which verlon does very well and um it was also really nice that it was a smaller consultancy they're definitely a boutique firm um and they're more of a workshop model so um I knew that I wasn't going to be that traveling consultant that went out every Sunday night or Monday morning and came back on a Thursday or Friday and had spent my entire week in a different city I that lifestyle wasn't for me um and their model is you know you have a bunch of clients at a time and you're working across maybe five to eight or more projects and with different clients and you're really at your office unless you're traveling to present or do interviews or something um but that exposure just across so many different types of organizations and projects was invaluable nice yeah I I've heard a lot of people enjoy their time there especially because it is really steeped in in strategy what What is strategy from the Consulting perspective right what does that actually look like can you just give me an example of what problems you're being asked to solve right I think that's a great question and there are so many different opinions and approaches to this but when we look at it high level you're really hoping to provide direction for the organization and there's so many parts of that strategic planning process or even the um development of the process right that Health Systems often need help with um whether it's setting a vision doing an environmental assessment and really doing the work that maybe they don't have capacity for internally to provide them with an Outlook of their market right um whether it's market share analyses volume Trends um you know things like medical staff development planning where you're looking at the number of Physicians you have in your market and how that compares to your patient population all of these things are are part of that strategic planning process but I think it really starts with that mission and vision statement and and Consultants often are the consensus Builders and facilitators of discussion where you can really step in and say okay here's all the information what do you think about it okay this is what you think about it now what are we going to do about it so you connect kind of that what everyone wants to do or the different ideas that everyone has with what the actual action needs to be yeah and where there strength and opportunities as well um you know sometimes it's hard to see that from the inside out or sometimes especially for our operators there's so many fires to put out at one time that it's hard to dedicate the you know mental space and capacity to process all of these things so often in Consulting for strategy that's what you're doing you're someone to fall back on and and remind folks that we have to keep moving forward and help them prioritize all the opportunities that they have and and measure that up with things that maybe we have to say no to as well and that's such a hard decision to make because our Healthcare Providers want to provide health care for their communities but you often can't do it all no absolutely and I've seen them struggle with that right because they love you know a lot of these people love their communities very deeply and to have to sacrifice in one area for the future of being able to provide care is challenging um I can see where an external consultant would be beneficial for that after your experience there though you went into the health system again for three years right you were the director there at um Tower health and so what caused you to leave Consulting and go back into the health system I really wanted to get back um being a little bit closer to the decisions that were being made and then the consequences of them um when you're a consultant and this isn't a bad thing and we all know this people who have been Consultants you kind of get to like you know wipe your hands and leave at the end of the day um we of course want everyone to implement our strategies and to be successful but really it's up to the folks doing the work to implement the strategies um and I was just ready for something new another challenge um and I was looking to take this very broad range of skills that I had developed and maybe figure out a way to like get a little better at something more specific right um and I've done this several times over the years um and it's always kind of a fun thing and this was actually a brand new opportunity at Tower Health um they'd never had anyone in the title before U it was a new position and I'm really exciting Market with a lot going on um and so I thought it would be a great opportunity too to further my career progression Tower Health has traditionally struggled with physician retention right that was I when I spoke to their one of their CEOs at their hospitals that was one of the issues that he was brought in to solve right and and he did well and so I want to ask what was the state of things when you came in to Tower Health sure it wasn't long after they had acquired the CHS hospital so for those listening Tower Health was originally Reading Hospital um and Reading Hospital is very big it's very busy actually has the busiest emergency department in the state of Pennsylvania or at least it did at the time that I worked there I doubt things have changed um and they really had a mission to grow and provide care to a wider geography um and there were several um for-profit Hospital hospitals in the market that um were being sold and they acquired them um so it wasn't long after that happened that I joined um and in that process those four profit hospitals had um historically not employed a lot of the physicians in their markets they had other arrangements with them whether it was like medical directorships or Professional Service agreements things like that and Tower really thought there was an opportunity to bring more of the those Physicians into a tighter alignment through employment um and so that was really my role to find strategically advantageous practices um to to partner with in a more formal way and to bring them into the fold of the Medical Group um which was very large at the time that I was there um I think we had a thousand providers or something including advanced practice providers um and my role was to be like the the person throughout the entire process where you know okay we're exploring this relationship and this acquisition we're doing the due diligence we're doing the fairmark evaluation which is where a lot of my experience from verlon came in um to play here and then also leading the integration of them which is what I was had had exposure to during my fellowship is integrating a new medical practice into an employed Medical Group um and even doing all of the in conjunction with legal all of the agreements around that in the negotiation why do we see so many organizations struggle with the integration phase right they go up through the acquisition they deal with all of the issues with that and then once they're acquired two or three years later some of these organizations are still kind of disjointed and in kind of a mess why does that happen oh gosh I think there's so many reasons I think some of it is just about resource allocation um so at my time at Tower they had also acquired St Christopher's children's hospital and I was the liaison and integration manager I guess it wasn't a formal title of St Chris's Medical Group into Tower health and part of it is like it's such a hurdle to integrate systems right even throughout Tower Health we had five different medical staffs five different credential or like maybe three different credentials eventually um with payers and so every time you had to move a physician or add them they had to go through such a lengthy process and so those processes and systems that are in place and combining them takes a lot of consensus building and honestly a lot of resources that sometimes Health Systems just don't have access to whether it's the capital expense to combine electronic medical records which Tower devoted a lot of money into when they um acquired a number of the um drexal Physicians um or just the human capital to like actually get the work done right when we think of how strapped and this isn't specific to anyone Health System but how like small and tight some of the teams are at Health Systems it takes a lot of work to get everyone on the same page with these things and we you also have this staff of Physicians and providers and um nurses and and everyone you know from the janitor to the CEO who have a culture and a history in an organization and there's a way of doing things and human behaviorists just not wanting to let go of that stuff have you found your psychology education useful in your integration role um I think so I think it's just been useful of how to frame things of like why people do things even from a strategic perspective okay why doesn't strategy work sometimes well it's because this is how humans work and it's not always what we want them to doing that's great no I appreciate that and so after that you went on uh to do a strategic planning role Regional director um and then you do that for about a year right and then after that you went back into the Consulting space with sg2 yeah um you know I had actually been applying to work at sg2 and this I don't think is a secret for a long time um I've Al always been interested since I became familiar with them during my fellowship at Spartenburg um with what they do and I was an sg2 user at several of the health systems that I worked at uh as a strategist and it's it's a really exciting place to work and you have a lot of like intellectual Freedom um which I at this point in my career find very attractive um and there had been some changes um within Trinity nationally that led me to look for another opportunity um and you know that happens to all of us sometimes um but this was a great transition and one of the reasons why I took on Orthopedics here um is because of its relation to Enterprise strategy um often a lot of the things that we're concerned about in Orthopedics are part of enterprise strategy like physician alignment right um or facility building if we want to build an ASC or um outpatient surgery center so it was a really natural um transition especially because I had already been familiar with the sg2 methodology from a consumer standpoint so from a consumer standpoint what is it if you can just explain to the guests who don't know yeah um so sg's primary um product and tool is our impact of change for um which is a proprietary um demand-based forecast um for healthcare and we actually forecast tens of thousands of procedures and visit types um across both inpatient and outpatient settings and we do it every year on a 10-year basis um so if you have access to our forecast through your organization um or someone in your organization does um there is actually a forecast um with volumes and a c cumulative percent change for every year in that 10year period it's not like a fiveyear and then a 10 year something it's every single year we have a percentage growth or decline um and we do this across um over a dozen service lines and so many different procedures and it's all based on our care grouper which is also proprietary way of matching drgs and CPT codes with um our service lines and procedure groups it's very very and how accurate is that um over the years it's been shown to be pretty accurate actually um they kind of do retrospective studies every now and then um it's a you know old it's older than 10 years now um maybe even 20 years wow um and it has changed a lot over the years it grows every year right we like add different things that we're forecasting um different categories or different uh procedures into um that framework and generally pretty accurate there have definitely been areas where maybe we over and underestimated but um people keep using it that's awesome yeah and and now like what a great time right with AI and ML and all these things really to the the public Forefront um and you have a really cool title right uh being in the intelligence you know area what is intelligence and and why is that part of your title unfortunately I'm not a spy I think that's what what people immediately go to when they hear intelligence like we're not the CIA um no corporate Espionage going on no no and we're very um conscientious about like strategic intelligence as well we're obviously trusted advisors to our members we don't give strategic intelligence to each other um and uh we're you know very conscientious of that like I said but um intelligence is really about taking all the noise that's going on about things whether it's technology the economy um how we care for patients through like clinical pathways and coordination um epidemiology and disease incidents and wrapping that up into thought leadership so we gather this through obviously reading research articles that are published by physicians and health systems and scientists um our own data sources we have um claims data sources and proprietary data sources that we use to inform our opinions through our own um unique and novel analysis and um news articles and what we hear from our members so our responsibility is really to um culminate all of that information and make a new novel opinion and um informed opinion about the future of healthcare that's really cool cool that's awesome I I have a question on that so I've talked with Consultants on whether Health Systems should have their own strategy department and it seem like the answer is yes and we're seeing that continuing to grow should uh Health Systems have their own intelligence Department as well is that something that you think is necessary to integrate or should that stay in the Consulting realm you know I think that the role falls into strategy departments often I feel like I was doing this like on a market level when I were heal systems you know knowing kind of what's going on and who's doing what and everything but from a national perspective or looking even regionally this is a lot it's a lot of work that's what I was about to say because I knew at Jeff it's within the strategy Department to do that and just seeing the amount of stuff in the in the Philadelphia region you were impacted by New York City we impacted byc I can't imagine two or three people in a strategy Department doing that as part of their daily workload which is why we have um almost 60 or over 60 people on sg's intelligence team um and so imagine trying to do that at a health system level and have the depth of knowledge that we have so um especially some of the more intricate service lines like cardiovascular or neurosciences they know so much about the clinical parts of the service line as well which is why we have experts dedicated to so so many areas so not only are there service line leads like myself so I lead our Orthopedics um service line intelligence and I share spine with um my neurosciences colleague we have cardiovascular um Imaging women's peeds um cancer right so um along with Orthopedics so there's so many areas of depth here and then outside of service line um we also have experts that lead different um intelligence teams around Enterprise strategy phys alignment um Financial um Financial strategy so we really have this like area of depth that's often impossible for um someone to get to if they're like trying to do it all right yeah because you can collaborate that's the other thing you can you know Orthopedic collaborates with all of your colleagues in other areas you can see how they interact right and I often collaborate with our leads of like Ambulatory Surgery and general surgery to work on things like sight of care shift where we saw um you know most total joint Replacements now are done outpatient where in 2018 and 2019 it was the exact opposite most of them were done inpatient so we often collaborate across um teams as well to um get deeper into subject Jacks and because a lot of things are shared um even though I um own a lot of the thought leadership on outpatient rehab I'm not the only service line that uses outpatient rehab right so I'm constantly talking to our neurosciences team um cardiovascular teams on what they're seeing and outpatient rehab in those Specialties as well where um where do you get where do they get the information is this some Consulting agencies I know they they have some ways of doing this in terms of what they see um from all their clients collectively and they put together a report are you getting this just from like public all the public data where do you get your information from so we do have um very comprehensive claims data um and part of that is because of our relationship with viant so vient is um traditionally a um group purchasing organization that many of your organizations are members of um that are the middlemen between device companies and suppliers and your health system and they help negotiate prices and do so much more work than that um but that's the basis of of vian's um original business model and then they also have a clinical database that all the members submit information into so that clinical database and the operational database that collect dozens and dozens of data points for um hundreds of Health Systems across the country country help inform our intelligence at sg2 along with some publicly available information from Medicare and Medicaid um we obviously have our own um uh access to commercial claims products um that are out there and a proprietary way of sorting those um so that we can then build the forecast and build all of our intelligence materials around it but some of it also is a more um more of an Artistry right right where and this is what strategy is too when you're internal and you're a strategist at a health system um there's you know professional societies so every year for example I go to the annual um American Academy of Orthopedics meeting and I spend four days there listening to all their presentations and identifying Trends and outliers and new technology that's coming out um and then follow up on all those things so this position is really like constantly learning and research researching from so many different resources literally anything we can get our hands on in fact you know I spend time even watching orthopedic surgeons on Instagram um to see what they're talking about and um what Journal articles they're citing or what issues they're seeing in their Market or what they think is happening with NE replac placements or spinal fusions right right um so there's unlimited data resources um which sometimes can make your job hard because you're like where do you stop right um but it is a really fun position to be in I often say it's like being in graduate school but you don't have like homework afterwards that's awesome I like that description that's great yeah yeah wow that sounds like such so I see why you've tried to to get into sjt for a while you'll have to let if there are any job openings there no it sounds very exciting and and I like the way that you you do things I have a tough question we can always edit this out but let's say you know in Philadelphia right Jefferson and Penn are are they're competitors in a lot of ways what if they are both using sg2 services for Orthopedics how do you provide services to both of them in a competitive market without you know any kind of conflict of interest okay so Cole if we had um two Health Systems in the same Market that were competitors which often happens obviously there's huge markets like Philadelphia that have a ton of competition in them um we have actually separate teams um that deal with those um not from a service line expertise standpoint but our account teams right um and like I alluded to earlier we're very conscientious about um strategic intelligence so we're not doing like Market level reports on every single thing that's happening in your city and how it compares to what your health your other you know competing health system is doing um but because we have a huge um and very uh responsible um and confidential um account teams with our um directors of strategic analytics where every one of our organizations members has a strategic analytics director and a client relations person and then people that support them under that we um have very strong lines of what kind of information gets shared um across them and we often blind stuff even if examples even if it's from a different Market okay so if a health system came to me Jones Health we'll make it up right and said um what is everyone doing about Ambulatory Surgery centers yeah and I just talked to Smith Health two days ago and they said da da da even if they're on opposite coasts we're never saying without permission oh well Smith Health told me this interesting and we should do that we're always saying oh another one of our members right so that's different than a lot of because a lot of Consulting organizations do engage in in you know that kind of practice Yeah but it's so important to her um work of having these relationships with our members and we really value what they share with us um that we never want to violate that trust and I I really think that um everyone should you know work under that premise um we never want to share sensitive information and I think we're really good at not doing that we always respect boundaries for folks but there's also a lot of opportunities where Health Systems do want to share that information right right um where we have you know a health system in Florida that I just did a case study with and featured in our Orthopedics newsletter um to highlight their spine program right um because they want to share what they're doing they don't think that it it is you know maybe they think it's just good that everybody should do what they're doing or that it's a great example and they want to share that and we have so many of those stories and case studies um and the other thing that we do is um make networking connections so probably not in the same city right because Health System A and B don't want to up either one of their strategic positions right um but what we'll do is if we have you know Jones health comes and says can we talk to a different member about um total joint replacement programs and I have someone in mind I'll email them say are you interested in you know would you be willing to talk to this member in a different Market about this and they'll say yes or no and then we might connect to them so that's a role that we often serve in too that is really cool and what a respectable and honest way of doing things so thank you for sharing that because I think uh a lot of people who are you know outlooking for some of these Services they want someone who's honest and trustworthy and as I mentioned you know not all consulting firms are like that um and so I really do appreciate you sharing the methods for that and thank you for coming on and sharing your about your whole kind of career and journey it's such a cool place to work and such a cool Journey as well it seems like you've kind of uh crafted yourself to be you know a perfect in uh individual for this job well thanks for saying so um you know I've really enjoyed every position that I've had and I think um all of them have um contributed to who I am as a professional now um and who knows where I'll end up at the end of my career I don't know I still have a long career ahead of me um and really enjoying the work that I do um and being able to touch so many Health Systems and in such a um impactful way with our forecast and with our intelligence I'm definitely going to be you know creating a job alert for SG sg2 after this conversation so and I encourage a lot of our our audience too as well if it's something that interest to we're gonna of course link to sg2 here so you can go and check them out and link to you as well um Donell so thanks again for coming on thanks for having me</p>
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