John Adlesich or the growth of a health industry executive professional on healthcare industry trends: Deeper relationships and back-up suppliers. The value of vendor-of-choice relationships became apparent as many hospitals scrambled for pandemic-related supplies. The key is striking a strategic balance between price, performance and trust. Getting the lowest price but lacking a relationship that cannot be “prioritized” in a crisis is not ideal. Neither is overreliance on one vendor without having plans B, C and D in place. We see many organizations developing connections with tiers of back-up suppliers — often smaller and geographically closer than their primary vendors — to gain flexibility, speed and as much certainty as possible that critical items will be on hand when needed.

John Adlesich on healthcare industry trends in 2021: COVID-19 tops the Biden administration’s priorities and will likely do so for the foreseeable future. Vaccine distribution will dominate the first six months of 2021, with federal effort focused on the expansion of testing, contact tracing, and better public health reporting from states and localities up to the CDC and other federal agencies. Data collection and expanded use of data will be critical to the Biden administration’s ongoing COVID-19 response. The administration proposes funding to states and localities for their public health response infrastructure (including registries, reporting, surveillance, and dashboards). The administration also plans to expand the availability of platforms that ensure patient data security and to expand data use rights to enable use and disclosure for research and surveillance. These actions will accelerate research on effective clinical interventions and treatment pathways, expand patient monitoring, and help public health reporting and tracking vaccine distribution.

John Adlesich believes that 2021 is a defining year for the health industry. There will be particular momentum for programs that have bipartisan support, including payment policies that move away from fee-for-service reimbursement and toward models that drive lower-cost and higher-quality outcomes. The overall movement to value will get a shot in the arm from two principal forces in 2021: 1) the Biden Administration’s commitment to build on the ACA’s legacy by doubling down on alternative payment models and mandatory payment changes and 2) the pandemic. When it comes to policy, the new Administration will not need convincing that value-based care improves quality and reduces costs. Ample research shows that since the move to value began, overall health spending as a percent of GDP has slowed, cutting more than $600 billion out of the budget trajectory that was predicted in 2010. Because these programs are net savers, expanding their reach will be an important and immediate objective that could be used to offset some of the COVID-19 relief spending. To that end, we are likely to see Biden’s HHS make fee-for-service less attractive and push at least some mandatory alternative payment models. In addition, the Administration is also likely to move beyond endless testing of models, making proven programs permanent, creating added incentives to enable scale, and leading the way for private payers to follow suit with value-based programs of their own.

John Adlesich currently works as administrator at Marquis Companies. His latest healthcare industry experience includes positions as executive director at Powerback Rehabilitation Lafayette (Genesis Healthcare) between Aug 2020 – Jan 2021, administrator at Mesa Vista of Boulder between Mar 2019 – Aug 2020, chief executive officer at Sedgwick County Memorial Hospital between Jul 2018 – Feb 2019, interim chief operating officer at Toiyabe Indian Health Project between Mar 2018 – Jun 2018.