Merging two healthcare providers—in 150 days, with 10X ROI

What We Did

Two leading providers of onsite and near-site health centers for employers announced their intent to merge. The challenge? Swift and effective integration of their very different operations was essential to future performance and competitive advantage. That’s a road we’ve traveled many times. And because of that, the private equity sponsor asked us to step in and lead the integration. 

We quickly assembled a multidisciplinary team to merge the two companies, including:

• Organizational structure
• Target operating model
• Technology platform
• Culture and change management
• Core clinical services approach and processes

Adding to the complexity, most of the planning and execution took place during the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Using Intellio® Deliver—West Monroe’s proprietary asset that accelerates integration by more than 50%—within 150 days the two companies were operating as one and on their way to delivering the results investors expect.

The Opportunity

To achieve its five-year growth plan and deliver on the private equity investor’s strategic goals, the company had to move quickly on three fronts: 

• Develop a new organizational structure – including roles and responsibilities – for the combined business
• Reconcile philosophical differences in the two organizations’ approaches to core clinical services and begin adopting a single, forward-looking approach 
• Consolidate two vastly different technology stacks into one platform that can support growth
  
  

An Undeniably Different Approach

We mobilized a multi-disciplinary team with deep healthcare industry knowledge, as well as expertise in mergers and acquisitions, technology, change management, human capital management and other areas relevant to this situation. This created a team well-equipped to make a wide array of integration decisions—always with business results in mind—leading to a faster, more effective integration. 

Our experience not only enabled us to work quickly. It became especially critical as the pandemic set in, and many aspects of the work unexpectedly had to proceed remotely.

Our team:

• Led an accelerated process to design the new organization structure, including leadership roles, enterprise functions, and a field model leveraging West Monroe’s organization visualization tool
• Worked with both organizations to design and implement a single operating model, including policies, processes, roles, and systems
• Established an integration management office (IMO) and led execution of key projects, leveraging Intellio® Deliver to accelerate the timeline and success
• Developed a change management and culture integration strategy — including elements such as shared governance, communications, talent management, and rewards and recognition—to foster a unified operating environment and minimize the risks of employee attrition. Then, we helped the team start implementing the change strategy across more than 170 areas
• Helped the new company find agreement on their approach for providing core clinical services that will enable growth.

Returns You Can Measure

Within 150 days, the two companies were working and acting as a single organization and under a single identity—well on their way toward a single  technology platform designed to optimize both clinical outcomes and provider and patient experience. Our ability to lead the integration enabled the company’s executives and 700+ clinical field employees to focus on their other challenging task at hand: delivering care and retaining clients during a global pandemic.

Rapid integration enabled the combined organization to rally around its new identity, culture, and market strength—positioning it to deliver on expected synergies. But our work produced other benefits, as well: Our analyses led to annual savings of $4.5 million on a new electronic medical records (EMR) platform and $3.5 million by eliminating redundant technology solutions and vendors across multiple business functions including HR and finance. The quantitative savings, alone, reflected a return in excess of 10X on West Monroe’s fees.