Healthcare System Strengthens Decision-Making to Improve Financial Health

Almost 50% of hospitals nationwide lost money over the past few years. While 2024 has seen a slight improvement, still 40% are experiencing losses while others stagnate.

To improve its financial picture, a large private healthcare system sought to increase business acumen and financial literacy among middle management on both the clinical and non-clinical sides of their business. The goal was to address two specific concerns:

  • In some clinical areas, there were ongoing gaps in understanding related to the cost of using external resources, such as agency nurses.
  • In non-clinical areas, low staff awareness of how their spending decisions on items such as supplies impacted healthcare system operations made it difficult to rein in costs.

Together, these issues were contributing to unwanted inefficiencies and expense.

To help managers connect the dots between their decisions and financial implications, the organization turned to Culture Partners for training using Zodiak®: The Game of Business Finance and Strategy. Through an experiential exercise tailored to their environment, participants were able to see the big picture of how their healthcare system operates, including how their decisions affect financial and organizational outcomes.

So far, more than 1,000 participants have undergone training. And the response has been highly affirming:

  • 95% said the Zodiak session was a worthwhile investment of time.
  • 95% said they gained new or enhanced existing financial knowledge and skills—directly impacting the key result they needed to achieve.
  • 97% said the facilitator kept them engaged, contributing to their uptake of new skills.

Based on this response, the plan is to roll out Zodiak training to boost financial literacy and business acumen among additional staff—strengthening decision-making and organizational results within the healthcare system.

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