Deciphering the New Normal (Part 2): CommonSpirit’s Chief Strategy Officer, Sheri Shapiro

CommonSpirit Health is one of the nation’s largest integrated
health systems comprising 142 hospitals and 2,200 care sites
across 24 states. Three years ago, at the height of the pandemic,
CommonSpirit’s Chief Innovation Officer, Rich Roth, and now
former CEO, Lloyd Dean, spoke with Keith Figlioli on the
Healthcare is Hard podcast to discuss their approach to leading
the organization through healthcare’s most challenging times. As
the country emerges into a new normal, CommonSpirit’s Chief
Strategy Officer, Sheri Shapiro, joins the podcast to discuss how
she’s leading this large organization with diverse markets and
service lines into the future.

Sheri recently joined CommonSpirit to lead strategy in June 2023,
undertaking a wide ranging role that spans responsibility for
market strategy and development, growth and partnerships,
strategy transformation, innovation, marketing and
communications, brand management, the international division,
sales and payer strategy. She brings more than 20 years of
healthcare management consulting, health system leadership and
brand management to the position, including seven years leading
strategy at another one of the country’s largest health systems,
Trinity Health.

In this episode of Healthcare Is Hard, Sheri talked to Keith
about how she views the new normal and how she’s helping
CommonSpirit navigate these uncharted waters. Some of the topics
they discussed include:



Guiding principles for a large health system. Sheri
described the three most important things she evaluates for
setting high-level strategy at a large health system. First is
defining the common thread that a health system will be known
for across all sites – the one unique advantage and competitive
differentiator. Second is setting individual market strategies
that align with the fundamentally local nature of healthcare
delivery. Third is the operating model of the company, which
serves as the glue that holds system and market strategy
together. Without a model that enables local markets to operate
efficiently while leveraging “systemness” and scale, Sheri says
a large health system will be unable to execute. 


Portfolio rebalancing. Sheri talked about how the new
normal has been impending for quite some time, citing examples
like the shift from inpatient to outpatient starting more than
a decade ago and challenges with rising costs growing for even
longer. With events including the pandemic accelerating the
need to transform, she talked about her beliefs around
portfolio management and thinking through how to best deliver
every service across the system and in each market. This
includes examining the organization’s presence in every market
to ensure it’s playing an essential role, and where it’s not,
looking for opportunities to transform. 


Misconceptions of healthcare economics. Most people have
a gross misunderstanding of healthcare finance and how
different it is than other industries. Sheri discussed the mix
of fixed and variable costs in healthcare and the inability to
control revenue like other industries can. She used the simple
example of restaurants that have trouble hiring and can adapt
by paying staff more and raising prices almost immediately – a
level of control healthcare providers just don’t have. She says
there will have to be a fundamental change in the economic
model of healthcare, and without policy reform, she says it
will impede the industry’s ability to transform.



To hear Keith and Sheri talk about these topics and more, listen
to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.