Overview

Perhaps the most complex management challenge today, resides in leading our nation's allopathic and osteopathic academic medical centers (AMCs). Comprised of schools of medicine, teaching hospitals, faculty practice plans, and potentially dozens of other formal and informal organizational entities, AMCs are responsible for fulfilling their patient care, teaching, and research missions under what is arguably the most regulated business environment in any marketplace. Understanding the governance, management, operations, and finances of AMCs and how these can be best structured to ensure the viability of component entities is a core strength of ECG Management Consultants, Inc.

Our Academic Healthcare Division staff of over 20 professionals dedicate their full professional energies to assisting AMC clients. We are committed to developing practical and implementable solutions to ensure that you are better able to balance clinical productivity with the need for maintaining high quality training programs – while finding time and energy to conduct cutting- edge research. We understand the challenge of generating sufficient funds to meet tripartite mission commitments within an environment that continues to squeeze margins, reduce external support, and shift grant funding. We understand the complexity of organizing hundreds of faculty, dozens of departments, numerous specialties, and multiple corporate and organizational entities to move your AMC towards achieving excellence.

Examples of the broad range of services and talent that we can bring to bear on your situation includes:

Organization and Governance

• Defining or restructuring the organization and governance of faculty practice plans.
• Restructuring, redefining, or developing university, school of medicine, teaching hospital, and faculty practice plan affiliation and governance relationships.
• Developing multispecialty and/or multiparty entities, such as cancer centers, cardiac programs, medical education, and research consortia.
• Reviewing and redefining administrative infrastructure of medical schools, academic departments, medical centers, and faculty practice plans.

Strategy and Planning

• Preparing multiyear strategic plans related to patient care, teaching, and research programs.
• Developing business plans for clinical initiatives and research programs – from the faculty level all the way up to large-scale AMC-wide endeavors.
• Conducting physician and other workforce analysis.

Finance and Operations

• Conducting operational reviews of departments, ambulatory clinics, and faculty practice plan support operations such as billing and collections.
• Developing faculty compensation plans that promote clinical productivity, while also recognizing the importance of, and need for, teaching and research excellence.
• Revising and developing funds flow arrangements that support the varied programmatic activity that occurs in an AMC.
• Conducting proprietary surveys related to AMC support, market compensation, and other key operational and financial metrics.

Specialty Programs

• Evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of surgical operating room performance and the staffing, scheduling, and support of anesthesia departments.
• Assisting in the development of unique pediatric services arrangements in children’s hospitals.
• Improving the performance of departments of radiology.
• Developing cardiac and cancer centers and structuring their attendant arrangements.

Specific areas in which we are currently working with AMCs include:

• AMC Financial Arrangements and Affiliations
• School of Medicine Management
• Graduate Medical Education Planning
• Research Planning and Management
• Faculty Practice Plan Organization/Governance
• Ambulatory Care Program Planning and Operations
• Revenue Cycle Enhancements

ECG brings an unsurpassed breadth and depth of expertise to our academic clients. Over the years, we have assisted almost every medical school in the United States. A list of our clients can be found here. Our professionals are regular speakers at national conferences, such as the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Academic Practice Assembly of the Medical Group Management Association, the Alliance of Independent Academic Medical Centers, and numerous other departmental and specialty-specific professional conferences. We believe that our commitment to the unique environment of AMCs, our greater than 30-year history in the industry, and the breadth and talent of our professionals will ensure the success of your endeavor.