Health systems have traditionally approached business services transformation one function at a time. Finance teams have improved stewardship and reporting, human resources teams have enhanced workforce support, and other departments have optimized their own processes and capabilities.
Yet even high-performing functions can create fragmentation when they operate independently. As organizations become larger and more complex, sustainable performance improvement increasingly requires an enterprise-wide business services model that breaks down silos, streamlines cross-functional work, and enables business services to operate as a unified system rather than a collection of individual functions.
That perspective becomes more important as business operations take on a larger role in health system strategy. In Huron’s 2026 Executive Provider Research, 41% to 63% of leaders say they are increasing investment in areas ranging from talent and organizational structure to core systems, financial management, analytics, and AI and automation.
As organizations commit more resources to these areas, understanding how they influence one another becomes increasingly important. Leaders need to know whether decisions in one area are limiting progress elsewhere and whether, collectively, these efforts are strengthening performance, supporting the workforce, and advancing patient care and growth priorities.
A regular enterprise assessment brings those connections into focus. Rather than examining individual areas in isolation or taking a broader look only when a specific need arises, leaders can assess how business services work together and whether the operating model supporting them is keeping pace as the organization evolves. The goal is not assessment for its own sake, but a consistent leadership discipline for ensuring business operations remain aligned with the needs of the enterprise.
See beyond business silos
A problem that looks straightforward within one area can look very different when leaders take a broader view. A revenue cycle issue, for example, may initially appear to be a staffing challenge. Look more closely, and leaders may find that technology is creating the bottleneck or that a handoff to finance is slowing the work. Without that broader perspective, it is easy to address the symptom without understanding what is driving it.
Silos can also hide inconsistencies in how work gets done across the organization. Business services may appear centralized, yet teams across different facilities may still follow separate processes or use different systems. Effective coordination and efficiencies of scale come from a clear operating model and consistent ways of working, even when employees are spread across locations.
Those differences become harder to manage as the organization grows. With an established structure and common ways of working, leaders can integrate newly acquired organizations without rebuilding the basics each time. That foundation also makes it easier to identify practices from newly acquired organizations that could benefit the broader enterprise.
Evaluate before change demands it
Growth is one reason to reevaluate how business services are organized and delivered, but it should not be the only catalyst for change. Too often, health systems wait until financial performance deteriorates, operating margins come under pressure, or a merger highlights significant inconsistencies across the organization before launching an enterprise-wide assessment. By that point, leaders are reacting to challenges rather than proactively positioning the organization for greater efficiency, scalability, and long-term performance.
An enterprise assessment is more useful when it becomes part of the organization’s regular management cadence rather than a review triggered by a specific event. Looking across business services on an ongoing basis can surface emerging constraints earlier and show where the operating model needs to evolve.
What constitutes high performance is also changing. Benchmarks show leaders how their organization compares with peers today, but they cannot fully account for how AI may reshape work or how advances in technology may change talent needs.
As those expectations evolve, assessments cannot be a point-in-time exercise. Leaders need to understand where business services stand today while considering how they may need to evolve over the next three to five years. That requires looking beyond current benchmarks to determine whether the organization has the right structure, technology, talent, and ways of working to support what comes next.
Look beyond cost to value
An enterprise assessment also gives leaders a broader way to think about value. The question is not simply how much the organization spends, but whether that investment continues to deliver what the organization needs. That value can take different forms, from lower costs and improved productivity to a better employee experience, stronger support for clinical teams, and more capacity to invest in patient care.
Cost and quality benchmarks provide important context. They show how the organization compares with peers and leading practices, but those comparisons are a starting point, not the answer. Higher spending can signal excess cost, or it can reflect an investment that is necessary to achieve the organization’s goals.
Take marketing, for instance. A health system competing with numerous providers in a major metropolitan market often needs to invest more than a rural organization with little local competition. Reducing that investment simply to match a benchmark risks weakening the organization’s competitive position. The appropriate level of spending depends on what the organization needs marketing to deliver. As strategy and market conditions change, leaders need to revisit whether the investment is still producing the right value.
Getting the investment level right is only part of the equation. Leaders also need to understand what the organization is getting in return. Cost and quality can show where performance is falling short, but understanding why requires a closer look at how the work gets done.
Consider a finance team that is appropriately funded but consistently takes 10 days to close the books when the target is five. The data identifies a performance gap, but it does not explain why. The answer could lie in how the work is structured, the technology supporting it, or the approvals required to complete it. Adding staff without understanding the cause risks increasing costs without improving the outcome.
Build for where the organization is going
Business operations cannot remain static while the rest of the organization changes. Shifts in strategy, technology, talent, and financial priorities can all change what the enterprise needs from its business services and how those services need to work together.
Clinical and operational areas routinely face expectations to improve quality, productivity, and performance. Enterprise functions warrant the same discipline. Applying the same rigor to business services gives leaders a clearer view of what is working, where constraints are emerging, and what needs to change.
Making enterprise assessment part of how leaders run the organization creates that discipline. Rather than waiting for performance challenges to force change, leaders can continually test whether their operating model is equipped for what comes next and adapt before it becomes a constraint. Over time, stronger business operations can reduce administrative friction, better support the workforce, and create capacity for growth, innovation, and patient care.
Special thanks to Nieve O'Donovan, Director, for her insights and contributions to this article.