ITM700 Case Analysis

Partners Healthcare System

Saahir Mulla
November 18th, 2015

I. Company Background
Partners HealthCare is a Boston based non-profit health care network founded in 1994 through a
partnership between Brigham and Womens Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital to become an
integrated health care delivery system that offers patients care, research, teaching and services to local
and global communities. Their service offerings span across community and specialty hospitals, a
managed care organization, a physician network, home care and more. Since 2009 onwards, the system
boasts 6,300 primary/specialty care physicians, 11 hospitals/health care entities, and teaching affiliations
with Harvard Medical School. With such a solid background and foundation, the mission is to provide the
highest quality of patient care possible, through research, education and community outreach.
Size & Industry
As the largest private employer and biggest healthcare provider serving one-third of patients in the
Boston area, their market dominance has left a significant impact on competitors in the healthcare space.
With a workforce of 40,000 employees generating more than $7 billion in revenue, and conducting $1
billion worth of medical research in 2008, Partners HealthCare catered to approximately 2.9 million
outpatient visits and 149,000 hospital admissions. With instituted programs such as Partners HealthCare
International, Center of Expertise in Global and Humanitarian Health , and Partners HealthCare
Connected Health, they strategically collaborate with colleagues overseas to improve global healthcare,
offer medical educational students the opportunity to experience hands-on training within medicine and
health care delivery, as well as offer remote medical consultations in developing countries. This enables
them to develop community outreach programs and establish their medical services far beyond the Boston
metropolitan area.
Product/Service
Partner HealthCares key service offerings range across the following:
1. Prevention/Primary Care: This service offering consists of 1,000 Partners-affiliated
primary-care doctors who treat patients in communities throughout eastern
Massachusetts. The primary goal is to improve the health of communities being served
through providing training for primary care physicians and nurse practitioners, and
improve access to care and prevention including substance abuse and domestic violence
prvenetion programs.
2. Hospital/Specialty Care: This offering is based on health care services covering nearly
every medical need through Partners five community and five specialty hospitals. They
attract patients not only from Boston, but also across the country and throughout the
world due to their groundbreaking achievements in medical care and specialization in
services. Partners and their partnering hospitals are also committed to advancing
medicine through biomedical research and teaching the next generation of physicians.
3. Rehabilitation: The Spaulding Rehabilitation Network, offered through Partners
HealthCare Network, provides nationally recognized rehabilitation care and services
ranging from stroke rehab to spinal cord treatments, and more. This is delivered through
a network of 4 inpatient hospitals, 2 skilled nursing facilities and 23 outpatient centers.
Also, additional research in rehabilitation focuses on improving neurological (body
nervous system) and muscukoskeletal (muscle & skeletal system) functions, developing
new treatments/therapies, and leveraging technology to advance medical application.

4. Home Care: This service offers medical, therapeutic and supportive home-based
services for patients recovering after hospitalization, for managing chronic illness or for
required assistance from home recovery. It focuses on both physical and emotional
health, as Partners leverages technologies such as remote monitoring to expand their
healthcare services and cater more dutifully to their patients needs.
Competition
Partner Healthcares primary competitors are the following:
1. Caregroup Inc: Caregroup Inc. is a Masachusetts based non-profit corporation that
oversees a regional health care delivery system consisting of teaching/community
hopsitals, physician groups and other caregivers. Their offerings include supporting
personalized, patient centered care and excellence in medical education and research. In
2010, they held $2.1 billion in total assets and generated $2 billion in annual revenue.
2. Boston Medical Center Corporation: Boston Medican Center is a non-profit academic
medical center located in Bostons South End, positioned as the largest safety net hospital
and busiest trauma and emergency services center in New England. With outreach
programs and service offerings such as Health Screenings, Smoking Cessation,
Preventive Food Pantry, and more, BMCs 4500+ workforce serve more than a million
patient visits a year to make a difference in the Boston community and beyond.
3. Steward Health Care System LLC: Steward HealthCare System is a community-based
organization that offers healthcare services to patients in Masachusetts, through their
resourceful expertise based around 3,000 physicians, 10 hospital campuses, 24 urgent
care providers, and other services. By serving more than a million patients in more than
150 communities, they have achieved $2.4 billion in annual revenues.
Company Strategy
Partners HealthCares company starategy is to foster healthcare education, research, treatment
improvement and patient services by focusing on these four basic elements: a clear vision, a strong
development team, an aligned scope, and a long-term sustainable plan. By forming a firm affiliation with
Harvard Medical School to research industry-edge medical practices, their focus remains to maintain their
costs of services whilst gradually improving their quality of service delivery and overall patient health
results. Through pioneering Electronic Medical Records (EMR) solutions, they have consolidated
information on more than 4.6 million patients (2009), and are seeking to extend their integration to
improve the quality of decision-making conducted by individual doctors and medical teams. This
initiative, named the High Performance Medicine Initiative, is an effort to leverage data to improve the
quality, safety and efficiency of care in the preventive and therapeutic treatments that Partners offers its
patients.
With information management prioritized at their forefront, they plan to spend $6.8 billion between now
and fiscal 2018 to maintain their dominant standing the Masachusetts healthcare industry. They have
strategically planned to spend their most significant amount of cash, amount to more than $3 billion, on
maintenance, spread across their administrative space in Somervilles Assembly Square and various
investments at North Shore Medical Center. They have allocated another $1.8 billion towards a new
research and clinical building at Brigham and Womens Hospital, and are putting aside $400 million for
health IT services. Also, in order to improve their integrated clinical and revenue system, another $1.5
billion has been slotted aside. Partners is confident of their end-goal being to maintain high quality care
while increasing patient affordability.