Session Overview:
Capacity constraints and reimbursement pressures are pushing health systems to question long-held assumptions about how access should be designed and delivered. In this Strategy Catalyst roundtable, leaders from Cleveland Clinic and Inova Health shared how their organizations are re-envisioning what "right level, right place, and right time" actually looks like in practice.
Building on our Access as a Strategic Product research series, this session featured Dr. Marianne Sumego, Director of Shared Medical Appointments at Cleveland Clinic, and Michelle Vassallo, Vice President of Clinical Operations at Inova Health. Both leaders presented their organizations' access initiatives and discussed how they've worked to unlock capacity without adding headcount, get buy-in from skeptical providers and leadership, prove value when ROI is hard to quantify, and sustain momentum over time.
The conversation also explored how systems can leverage what they already have in place, how to persevere when access work takes years to build, and what's next on the horizon as reimbursement rules and patient expectations continue to shift. Attendees had the opportunity to ask questions and share their own access challenges with the panelists and peer leaders.
Key Takeaways
Leverage what you have and pace the transformation realistically: Access transformation starts with an honest assessment of existing capabilities—clinical champions, scheduling infrastructure, EMR functionality, care models, and governance structures—and builds from there. Cleveland Clinic scaled SMAs by refining and standardizing a model that had already proven effective in small pockets. Inova expanded access by strengthening foundational elements (template integrity, visit types, centralized routing) before layering on advanced self-service tools.
Prove value in layers, not just at the enterprise level: ROI for access investments doesn't always show up immediately or cleanly. Both speakers emphasized demonstrating value at multiple levels: the strategic ROI that leadership needs to see, and the "mini ROIs" that matter to individual departments and providers. The key is tying metrics to the specific problem each stakeholder cares about.
Access work requires standardization, and how you approach those conversations matters: Standardization can feel threatening to providers who worry about losing control. The health systems that succeed approach these conversations specialty by specialty, listening to what each group needs and using data and direct patient feedback to make the case. Executive buy-in sets the direction, but provider-level engagement determines whether the work takes hold.