Organizational Change and Leadership in Ambulatory Access
By Kara Gormont, EdD, RN, Access Leader
Amid regulatory shifts, financial instability, workforce shortages, and growing mental health and substance abuse crises, the pressures on healthcare leaders today are immense. Yet across these varied challenges, one issue cuts through them all: access to care.
As these pressures mount – and as the broader environment of care continues to evolve – our health systems are undergoing a profound transformation.
One of the most significant changes is a move away from inpatient, acute care models toward outpatient and home-based care. This transition in the model of care opens the door for leaders to reimagine workflows and design systems capable of revolutionizing care delivery.
Ambulatory care is no longer an afterthought; it’s at the center of the health systems of the future. Four major forces are accelerating the shift in ambulatory care:
- Shift from Acute to Ambulatory Care: Strained even further by the COVID-19 pandemic, our overwhelmed inpatient capacity cannot meet rising demand, especially as the aging Baby Boomer population necessitates an increasing allocation of resources.
- Health Systems Employing Physician Groups: Hospitals are acquiring more and more outpatient practices – but they’re still figuring out what to do with them. Managing them effectively is a delicate science, and health systems are often learning to integrate as they go. Key processes – like adhering to best practices for access, opening the digital front door, understanding and managing provider availability, and handling staffing needs – need to be designed with great intention. Through a centralized approach, healthcare becomes an integrated system.
- Consumer Expectations: Patients in 2025 expect care on their terms: on-demand, convenient, and often administered via a digital platform. They want what they want when they need it – but in many cases, our system is currently incapable of delivering accurate and timely care. Our standards for care delivery must rise to meet these elevated expectations as the ambulatory market becomes increasingly competitive.
- Technology and AI: We are in the midst of the greatest technological revolution since the inception of the internet. The breakneck pace of artificial intelligence innovation, especially for remote care and diagnostics, is reshaping how and where care is delivered. To embrace this change, ambulatory leaders must be willing to challenge the status quo and engineer workflows to evolve our existing systems of care.
In our next blog, learn about the role of leadership in driving change.
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