The Biggest Surprise at JPM 2022 Is What Wasn’t Being Discussed: COVID

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Dan Michelson has held at
least three to five zoom calls per day with hospital CFOs across
the country. As the industry navigated the most disruptive and
uncertain times in modern history, healthcare leaders turned to
Dan for his insight and advice because of the unparalleled
visibility he has into the market through his company, Strata
Decision Technology. Strata provides financial planning and
analytics software for more than 400 health systems and 2,000
hospitals – in other words, about half the U.S. healthcare
provider market.

While health leaders turn to Dan on an ongoing basis, he’s also
become known for articles every January that analyze the top
trends and topics discussed at the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare
Conference. In fact this year, Dan published two articles – one
in Fortune and one in STAT News – and for the third year running,
joined Keith Figlioli to dive even deeper with a discussion on
the Healthcare is Hard podcast.

What surprised both Dan and Keith the most at this year’s event
is the fact that COVID was not really a focus. CEOs and CFOs from
some of the nation’s most prominent health systems that presented
during JPM’s non-profit track barely mentioned it because it’s
now become a normal part of every health system’s operating
model. COVID is no longer a specific focus because it’s an
intrinsic element in everything they do, and they’re prepared for
it.

But Dan’s articles touched on some of the other major topics from
JPM that he and Keith talk about in this episode, including:



Staffing. Staffing. Staffing. The headline of Dan’s
article in STAT News captured the mood best: “Covid-19 is no
longer the biggest issue facing hospitals. Staffing is.”
Workforce issues dominated JPM this year and most presenters
recognized these issues as their biggest focus and challenge.
Dan and Keith discussed how health systems are thinking about
staffing differently and how they’re thinking about deploying
technology differently to ease staffing demands and burnout.
They also discussed some of the new challenges providers are
facing as the market evolves – such as competition for new
talent from virtual care companies, specialty providers, payers
and many others – and new strategies for training, recruiting
and retention a result.


Top strategies for the future. With COVID becoming a
normal part of operations, health systems are finally thinking
about the future again with a clear eye towards strategy. In
Dan’s Fortune piece, “The greatest comeback in the history of
health care,” he talked about the severe financial strains
health systems faced over the past two years, with volumes down
30% to 40% in the early days of the pandemic. But now that the
industry has weathered the storm and proven how critical and
resilient it is, the focus is the future. From what Dan heard
at JPM, he sees strategies falling into five critical areas
that he and Keith discussed: M&A, investing in innovation,
value-based care, creating destination centers, and deploying
virtual care platforms.



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