Developing a Strategic Plan for Enhanced Financial Performance

MarinHealth is a health system with a 235-bed tertiary care hospital that includes a Level III trauma center, emergency department, and labor and delivery unit. The system engaged ECG to develop an updated enterprise-level strategic plan in FY 2021 following the expense of a $500 million patient tower needed for seismic compliance, greater-than-expected operating pressures in FY 2019, and weak operating performance leading up to the coronavirus pandemic.

MarinHealth is the main healthcare and trauma provider to the residents of Marin County in Northern California, offering a comprehensive suite of inpatient, outpatient, primary care, and specialty physician services. As with other healthcare systems, MarinHealth faced significant challenges related to COVID-19, including revenue shortfalls and operational complexities. 

MarinHealth engaged ECG as a strategic partner to develop a five-year strategic plan and define a resilient strategy that considered the full set of challenges facing the system, supported by a robust financial analysis of the resulting strategies.

ECG’s three-phase approach to the engagement started with a situational assessment to understand MarinHealth’s current position in the market and how it was performing against its existing goals; stakeholder interviews; and an in-depth financial and operational assessment. In phase two, we developed new strategic initiatives and modeled the projected financial impact of successful implementation, all the while asking, “Is this enough?” Finally, in phase three, ECG established performance metrics and outlined strategic priorities for the leadership team.

MarinHealth and ECG collaborated throughout the project via a focused executive work group and a larger steering committee. ECG recommended a deliberate strategic plan across six pillars that included developing destination clinical programs and key partnerships, advancing ambulatory capabilities, and identifying operational and revenue cycle efficiencies.

The strategic revitalization plan focused mainly on three parts: clinical service line growth initiatives, several cost improvement initiatives, and revenue growth driven from the UCSF Health affiliation. ECG successfully identified about $50 million in annual savings opportunities, of which the system completed nearly $46 million by September 2021 with other initiatives still in play. The initiatives put MarinHealth on the road to sustainable financial performance that takes advantage of its demographically attractive service area.