Our Mission
We work with our clients to evaluate program performance throughout the spectrum of the resident training experience.
Our tailored recommendations support the alignment of academic performance goals for stakeholders, including; financial management, resource allocation, and organizational structure. Managing these academic variables is essential to maintaining viable teaching programs and ensuring their continued success.
Our Focus
We focus on the unique needs of the academic healthcare community, including; organizational strategy, developing new programs, optimizing existing operations, creating strategic partnerships, and enhancing overall financial performance.
Our Approach
We work in partnership with our clients to evaluate operations and develop strategies to effectively manage existing programs, assess the feasibility of developing GME teaching programs, and assist in establishing new residency programs for systems and community hospitals eligible to fund new programs. Our solutions are customized and tailored to meet the needs of the organization and community. Each facility, community, and marketplace will face a unique set of circumstances that will impact the design of the operating model. These operating variables will also affect its ability to host and train learners effectively. Individual markets will need to assess the value of GME based on their respective environment.
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ACA leaders deeply understand the need for the strategic investment of limited resources and funding available to academic medical centers and teaching hospitals to achieve their missions and visions. Consideration of the various stakeholder perspectives in this environment is critical to gaining credibility with decision-makers and supporting the management of competing objectives. We understand the high-stakes decisions that must be made when preparing complex academic enterprises for the future, and we are skilled at developing approaches that build consensus and support for both small and large-scale change.
Client Strategies That We Have Developed and Implemented
GME Strategic Planning
Conducted a strategic evaluation of a large health system to update its academic strategic plan in a changing GME regulatory environment. The strategy resulted in a reduction in resident positions in multiple programs while several other programs saw value in increased slots based on organizational need. Key inputs to this strategy; community/organizational need, program quality/viability, changing reimbursement/cap implications and evolving organizational economic realities. ​
Program Expansion​
Supported a large national health system over a multi-year period, to develop and implement its GME expansion strategy. Strategic considerations included the integration with current GME operations and national, regional and individual hospital governance responsibilities. The strategy is expected to add 500 residents to its national network. This represents a five-fold increase in its GME footprint and adds significant economic value to the system in the form of reimbursement, grant support, decreased physician recruiting costs and improved clinical delivery capacity. ​
Financial Performance Improvement
Directed the development of operational and organizational strategies for academic health systems to improve financial performance across the hospital, faculty and community ambulatory network. An example was the clinical integration of existing primary care programs into a local Federally Qualified Health Center. The collaboration expanded care delivery to the community while increasing the combined system performance by $1 mil annually.​
GME Reimbursement Improvement​
Leveraged recent changes in CMS rules and regulations, to expand and receive reimbursement for an existing teaching hospital footprint in primary care (Psychiatry, OB/GYN, Internal Medicine and Family Medicine) to support system primary care shortages. This strategy was implemented by multiple organizations to improve academic economics and broaden their primary capabilities in underserved markets.​
Medical School
We have successfully partnered with major universities and proposed Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, and designed and executed strategic GME development plans that align with institutional missions and values while addressing critical community healthcare needs. Our work includes close collaboration with university leadership, hospital systems, and community stakeholders to create accreditation-ready GME strategies that meet COCA standards. As part of these efforts, we have also played a key role in expanding clinical education capacity within GME-partnering hospitals, ensuring that clinical sites are aligned, prepared, and integrated to support long-term residency training.
For-Profit GME Program Expansion​
Supported the planning and implementation of a GME growth strategy for a large national health system to establish, or significantly expand, their GME national footprint. The effort evaluated reimbursement/ economics, clinical capabilities, regulatory risk and other potential risk factors for program development at a regional and hospital level. The final deliverable prioritized 48 of the organization’s hospitals for GME development over the next five years.
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