The Client Challenge

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), its affiliated hospitals, and Lahey Health had a vision: they wanted to build a comprehensive, geographically distributed health system that provided high-quality, lower-cost care. The collective management teams—which later included Mount Auburn Hospital, New England Baptist Hospital, and Anna Jaques Hospital—had significant tasks before them. They needed to navigate a challenging regulatory environment for state and federal approvals, embrace their organizations’ diverse cultures while developing a common culture for the new health enterprise, and pursue speed to value upon merging.

REQUIREMENTS FOR FORMING THE NEW HEALTH SYSTEM:
  • Developing a compelling strategic rationale and earning board approvals 

  • Winning state and federal approvals in a complex, contentious regulatory environment 

  • Aligning cultures across legacy systems, 13 hospitals, 4,000+ physicians, and 35,000+ employees

  • Developing and implementing integration plans for dozens of clinical specialties and administrative functions 

  • Delivering on the new organization’s promise to patients, communities, and providers on Day One 

Navigating to Next: The Solution

With past merger experience, leadership understood the complexity of bringing their vision to reality. They understood that the scale of the undertaking, myriad of stakeholders, regulatory environment, and importance of successful execution all added significant burden to already busy executives and clinicians. Building on the strategic rationale and projected value for patients and the community, Chartis worked with the organizations, their legal teams, and economic advisors to craft regulatory filings and subsequent responses. Chartis launched the Integration Management Office (IMO) to manage the pre/post-close integration planning process and provide facilitative, advisory, analytic, and project management support. The Chartis IMO facilitated more than 30 clinical and administrative “design teams” charged to envision and recommend the optimal future state for the expanded enterprise. We then drafted supporting implementation plans and associated metrics of success. These efforts helped ensure BILH was poised to quickly achieve the goals for the new system with minimized execution risk. The Chartis IMO also helped BILH stand up its internal IMO with tools and trainings to seamlessly transition ownership for the ongoing integration efforts.

Navigating to Next: Key Components

Case Study - Creation of the Partnership to Fully Integrated

Affiliation Strategy Development

Formulate partnership strategy and explore, evaluate, and determine options.

Case Study - Creation of the Partnership to Fully Integrated

Transaction Structuring/Execution (~3-9 Months)

Develop, negotiate, and align on key terms/LOI. Due diligence, pre-close integration activities, definitive agreement, regulatory review, and transaction closing.

Case Study - Creation of the Partnership to Fully Integrated

Integration & Value Capture

Post-merger integration and value capture.

Client Impact

Chartis collaborated with the legacy organizations and many direct and affiliated stakeholders by providing support, structure, advisory, and analytic services through all phases—from first ideation through consummation of the merger to meaningful integration. The new health system launched in March 2019 and started to realize value quickly through identified administrative synergies and clinical integration. Diligent planning that touched every corner of these institutions allowed Beth Israel Lahey Health to develop a common culture, shared set of experiences, and an appreciation for the role each organization could play in improving healthcare for the region. When the COVID pandemic hit just one year later, the health system was able to take a leadership role in the regional response with resilience, capitalizing on the benefits of scale and the comprehensive capabilities the larger organization could share among members.

Pre-approval planning and organized implementation efforts led to numerous “wins” in Year One:
30

Design teams, bringing together 200+ participants across all 5 organizations.

200 +

Integration initiatives developed.

100 M

In projected value from integration initiatives during the first 2 years after close.


How We Are Making Healthcare Better

Key to our success was collaboration. We also worked from the beginning to set forth clear goals and commitments that focused on delivering value to patients, caregivers, and the community. Both put us in a position to succeed as we carried the work forward on our own. ”

Peter Shorett
Chief Strategy Officer, Beth Israel Lahey Health

Next Intelligence

Mergers can realize the value of the “integration promise” through engaged, structured, and proactive planning:
  • Engage leadership with a robust dedicated IMO
  • Ensure transparent messaging, clear expectations, and progress measurement
  • Demonstrate early wins and proactively manage risks

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