As Omicron Surges, Healthcare Leaders Look to Prioritize Workforce Issues in 2022

CHICAGO – January 11, 2021 – While many industry leaders believed hospitals and health systems would have time to recover in 2022, the Omicron variant and global supply chain and labor shortages continue to fuel ongoing challenges. Despite these obstacles, healthcare organizations are proving to be agile, according to Syntellis Performance Solutions’ 2022 CFO Outlook for Healthcare report, published today. The report reveals that while leaders are more confident in their ability to remain agile (90%), addressing workforce issues will be a major priority in 2022, with 70% of respondents focused on workforce optimization and productivity.

“The past year has shown healthcare organizations where the gaps exist in their financial, operational and management infrastructure, and what needs to be addressed,” said Flint Brenton, CEO of Syntellis Performance Solutions. “Insights from the CFO Outlook report are key to helping leaders identify the most pressing issues facing the industry and determine how to overcome them. Despite the uncertain environment exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic, we see more healthcare organizations demonstrating flexibility and implementing the proper measures to keep moving forward.”

Findings from the CFO Outlook for Healthcare report were pulled from a survey of 420 U.S. healthcare financial professionals. Other key findings of the report include:

• Room to grow when it comes to leveraging data: Despite greater access to data from across their organizations, a vast majority (82%) of healthcare finance professionals said their organizations should still do more to better leverage financial and operational data in the new year.

• Progress is hindered by reliance on spreadsheets: Healthcare organizations need more comprehensive and reliable decision support solutions; nearly two-thirds (61%) of organizations report having inadequate systems that require them to rely on spreadsheets.

• Lack of confidence in benchmarking: One-third report being unhappy with the data submission process for financial benchmarking and a quarter are not using any financial benchmarks.

• Cost management and reductions are top of mind: Behind addressing workforce issues, cost management and reductions are another priority for healthcare leaders, with 69% agreeing it’s very important to fiscal health.

• Agility gets a boost from efficient budgeting: Evolving budgeting practices reduced the length of budget cycles; the proportion of organizations with budgeting cycles lasting six months or more dropped to 29%, down from 50% in 2019, before the pandemic. Almost all organizations (92%) now are confident in their teams’ ability to quickly adjust strategies and plans in response to sudden changes, up from 83% in late 2020.

• Institutions work to plan for the future: Organizations are seeking better ways to anticipate the future with nearly half (46%) planning to increase use of predictive analytics technology. And more than half (55%) of organizations using some form of rolling forecasting.

The 2022 CFO Outlook for Healthcare report features findings from the annual survey examining processes, technology and priorities in healthcare finance, as well as performance data from more than 1,000 hospitals and health systems aggregated by Syntellis' Axiom^TM Comparative Analytics. 

Download the full 2022 CFO Outlook for Healthcare report

About Syntellis Performance Solutions

Syntellis Performance Solutions provides innovative enterprise performance management software, data and analytics solutions for healthcare organizations. Its solutions include enterprise planning, cost and decision support, and financial and clinical analytics tools to elevate organizational performance and transform vision into reality. With over 2,800 organizations and 450,000 users relying on its Axiom and Connected Analytics software, combined with No. 1 rankings from Black Book Research and an HFMA Peer Review designation for six consecutive years, Syntellis helps healthcare providers acquire insights, accelerate decisions and advance their business plans. For more information, please visit www.syntellis.com.