How the findings of CHRISTUS’ First Futures Task Force Impacted CHRISTUS

The findings of Futures Task Force I included:
1) The declining reimbursement under the control of both the federal and state governments, and
2) The rapid introduction of technology that would move a significant amount of health care from an inpatient setting to the non-acute arena. At CHRISTUS, we define non-acute care as “care and services that do not require an inpatient acute care hospital stay” (i.e., outpatient sites, clinics, continuing care retirement communities, long-term care, etc.).

In fact, when we began future planning, we believed—and have subsequently proven—that this introduction of non-invasive technology would be so rapid that it would be disruptive. In fact, it is so disruptive we could not respond rapidly enough to its introduction and were burdened with the question, “Should we purchase the first generation of the technology, or wait to purchase the second generation?” Technology is changing so rapidly that with limited financial resources, this question needs constantly to be asked, and then, as objectively as possible, be answered using data as rationale.

You can read more about these findings at a previous blog post here. These findings proved to be such a shift in thinking from traditional health care models that we started on a journey to redesign our portfolio to one-third acute care, one-third non-acute care and one-third international care. I blogged about this redesign in 2007, so feel free to read more there if you’re interested in more in-depth information.