Building Market Distinctiveness for the Surgery Service Line

By William “BJ” Krech, III, MHA, system director, orthopedic and surgery service line strategy and business development, Premier Health

Premier Health’s 2023 strategic plan has six main themes. The first of those themes, referred to as strategy one, is to “build market distinctiveness.” This plan defines building market distinctiveness as reclaiming market share by doubling-down on areas with disproportionate opportunity to capture growth in our eight county region. To accomplish this, the strategy led us to a system-wide service line approach with an emphasis on growth, strategy, and business development.

At the beginning of 2021, Premier Health established a brand-new service line structure when we introduced the surgery service line. As we evaluated the approach to surgery as a service line, we decided our best opportunity to meet the goals of strategy one was to put our focus on program development.

• Heartburn and Reflux Program: In collaboration with radiology, gastroenterology, primary and specialty care, we are working to build a program around fore-gut and reflux treatment solutions. This program will include physicians from across the system and will be marketed to the community as an industry leader in reflux treatments as well as providing the highest level of service.
• Medical and Surgical Weight Loss: With a strong programmatic foundation, we identified an opportunity within the market to expand Premier Weight Loss Solutions (PWLS). The physician network and physician recruitment team successfully recruited two new surgeons to the program. In partnership with the care team and leadership at PWLS, we are poised to grow the program through various channels, including educating patients already using Premier Health services, contracting with employers, direct-to-consumer digital marketing, and community educational programming.
• Extended breast surgeons to Atrium Breast Center: We created a one-stop shop with enhanced collaboration with the breast imaging team and nurse navigation. The outcome will increase market share through the packaging of services at one site as we communicate the program to consumers as a complete breast care center. This effort is supporting the Women’s Health Center of Strategic Growth at Atrium as well as in alignment with the oncology service line efforts across the system from both a connectivity and commonality of services perspective.

As we look ahead to 2022, in addition to further program development, the surgery service line is also supporting other specialty areas with significant opportunity as defined by market analysis, including gastroenterology. We are supporting the coordination of a system strategy approach to gastroenterology services to enhance coverage, increase outpatient elective volume, retain procedural volume, and gain market share.

We look forward to continuing to support Premier Health’s strategic initiatives and welcome input and engagement from our surgeons and physicians.

William (BJ) Krech, III, MHA
wjkrech@premierhealth.com

Michelle DeGroat, MD, FACS
mrdegroat@premierhealth.com

Back to the November 2021 issue of Premier Pulse