Eli Shields

Eli has more than 15 years of experience helping healthcare organizations streamline operations, drive sustainable growth, and improve clinical quality to enhance patient outcomes while reducing cost.

Transforming healthcare through an innovative approach to operational excellence, smart IT investments, and data-driven insights empowers healthcare clients to advance patient satisfaction and clinician engagement.”

About Eli

Eli has over 15 years’ experience advising healthcare clients and leading initiatives to reduce cost; improve administrative and clinical operations by identifying efficiencies in workforce and technology; and leverage data to make impactful strategic and investment decisions. His areas of expertise include performance improvement, population health, revenue cycle, and data and analytics.

Throughout his career, Eli has:

• Managed a surgical supplies and surgery scheduling initiative for a community hospital in the Midwest, resulting in a 7 to 1 return on investment annually. The engagement helped reduce supply and device waste during surgical cases while also increasing scheduling efficiency and on-time starts through IT improvements and clinician education.
• Managed a strategic planning and marketing initiative for a 650-bed health system in the Southeast, looking at marketing strategy, competition, and leakage. This resulted in $5 million in new annual revenue by analyzing and improving underperforming service lines, leveraging digital marketing principles and data to attract new patients to the health system, and reducing how many patients leave the hospital’s service areas for care.
• Directed a revenue cycle initiative focused on technology and staffing enhancements for a rural health system in the Midwest, resulting in $10 million in savings across a three-year period.

Prior to joining Huron, Eli held successive roles at Optum, starting as senior operations director, managing a team of revenue cycle experts across the Western U.S., before becoming solution executive of analytics and then senior client executive. As a senior client executive, Eli was responsible for managing strategic partnerships with health systems in the Midwest. Prior to Optum, he held various roles at Premera Blue Cross, where he became an expert in payor contracts, healthcare operations strategy, healthcare finance, and quality of care. Eli spent the early years of his professional career as a training specialist, leading new hire classes and orientation with a focus on educating team members on the healthcare industry.

Eli earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington.