BJC-Collaborative-Annual-Report.pdf

Annual Report 2023

BJC Collaborative 2023 | Page 2

A Note from Chris Watts

Our four founding members – BJC HealthCare (St. Louis, Missouri), CoxHealth (Spring eld,

Missouri), Memorial Health (Spring eld, Illinois), and Saint Luke’s Health System (Kansas City,

Missouri) – came together in 2012 to form the BJC Collaborative (BJCC). Together, our founders

shared a common desire to build strong relationships with other like-minded health systems in the

Midwest and saw BJCC as an opportunity to achieve something new. As a collaborative organization,

our health systems speci cally set out with the goals to reduce the cost of care we provide, enhance

the clinical programs we all offer across the region, and share best practices to improve the quality of

care and experience we provide to our patients.

Over the past eleven years, BJCC has retained its commitment to these original goals. We have continuously  exed

our priorities based on the changing health care landscape — whether that be establishing new committees in

emerging areas like virtual care and cybersecurity or establishing a roundtable to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have also grown our membership over the years to include four additional participants — Blessing Health

System (Quincy, Illinois), Phelps Health (Rolla, Missouri), Sarah Bush Lincoln Health System (Mattoon, Illinois),

and Southern Illinois Healthcare (Carbondale, Illinois) – which has expanded our impact across the region.

Overall, 2023 was another successful and exciting year for the BJC Collaborative. A few of our highlights include

the following:

- Phelps Health was welcomed into BJCC as the  rst new participant since 2015. Phelps Health is based in Rolla,

Missouri — which is midway between two of our member organizations, BJC HealthCare in St. Louis and

CoxHealth in Spring eld.

- The BJC Collaborative’s members realized more than $125 million in savings in 2023 through clinical asset

purchasing and optimization efforts. Since 2012, BJCC savings efforts have realized over $746 million in savings

for its members.

- In May 2023, two of our founding members — BJC HealthCare and Saint Luke’s Health System — announced

their intention to join together to operate as one super-regional health care system serving the St. Louis and

Kansas City areas, southern Illinois, northwest Missouri and eastern Kansas. Effective January 1, 2024, this

integration of these systems grew BJC Health System into a 24-hospital organization with 44,000 employees.

- The BJC Collaborative Board saw multiple changes in 2023. Maureen Kahn, President and CEO of Blessing Health

System retired and was succeeded by Brian Can eld in June 2023. Jason Shene eld, President and CEO of Phelps

Health, joined the Board to represent his health system, and Dr. Mindy Estes, President and CEO of Saint Luke’s,

retired in December 2023.

- Leaders from across the Collaborative convened for the  rst time to share best practices and strategies around

embedding diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging practices into our respective organizations.

- Our various BJCC committees have continued to build relationships across our organizations through best

practice sharing, coordinated learning sessions with industry experts, and more.

Building on the success of 2023, I look forward to another year of partnership and collaboration in 2024.

Chris Watts

BJC Collaborative Executive Sponsor

BJC HealthCare Chief Strategy Of cer

Page 3 | BJC Collaborative 2023

Health systems

80,407

Employees

11.4 million

Service area population

$1.44 billion

Annual community benefit

7,247

Staffed beds

Hospitals

$15.7 billion

Annual net revenue

8,967

Affiliated physicians

1.2 million

Annual emergency visits

312,195

Annual admissions

2023 AT A GLANCE

BJC Collaborative 2023 | Page 4

Integration Among BJCC

Members

In May 2023, two of the Collaborative’s founding members —

BJC HealthCare and Saint Luke’s Health System — made an

exciting announcement that they intended to come together as

one integrated, super-regional health system.

The health systems announced that effective January 1, 2024,

Saint Luke’s Health System would join the organization now

operating as BJC Health System, which will serve patients and

communities as two distinct regions — BJC’s East region, BJC

HealthCare, serving the St. Louis area and southern Illinois,

and BJC’s West region, Saint Luke’s, serving the Kansas City

area, northwest Missouri and Eastern Kansas. Together, as BJC

Health System, both regions remain committed and eager to

participate in efforts across BJCC.

Best Practice Sharing

Building and maintaining strong relationships across our

members remained a priority for BJCC in 2023. These

relationships are the foundation of BJCC’s achievements,

and the primary venue for establishing them is our BJCC

committees, which convene throughout the year to share best

practices, provide support to the BJC Collaborative Board, and

identify areas for collective initiatives.

In 2023, BJCC collaborated across the following committees:

• Cancer Screening and Prevention

• Clinical Asset Management

• Clinical Engineering

• Communications

• Cybersecurity

• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging

• Government Relations

• Human Resources

• Legal Services

A few speci c 2023 highlights from our committees include:

• Maintained lung screening dashboards and practices, which

were established through the two-year clinical trial that was

completed by BJC Collaborative members in coordination

with Washington University School of Medicine in 2022

• Identi ed opportunities for Phelps Health, our newest

participant, to integrate into the Collaborative’s current cost

savings initiatives — saving the organization $230,000 on

clinical asset purchases in Phelps’  rst year as part of BJCC

• Onboarded Decatur Memorial Hospital, a part of Memorial

Health, into the Collaborative’s shared clinical asset

management database, which allows for closer management

and planning for clinical equipment

• Hosted quarterly, in-person workshops for BJCC cybersecurity

leaders — focusing on the sharing of best practices around

cybersecurity and hosting special agents from the Federal

Bureau of Investigation to share threat brie ngs

• Convened an in-person workshop to focus on building

diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging programs at our

organizations for both our employees and patients

• Established joint dashboards for crucial human resources

metrics like adjusted voluntary turnover and average length

of time to  ll open positions, and shared best practices to

address our common challenges

In November 2023, BJC HealthCare and Saint Luke’s Health System signed a

deﬁ nitive agreement to join together.

The Collaborative Board celebrated Blessing Health System President and

CEO Maureen Kahn on her retirement in 2023.

Page 5 | BJC Collaborative 2023

Reducing Costs

A primary goal of BJCC is reducing the cost of care by

identifying savings opportunities and purchasing synergies. The

BJC Collaborative’s Clinical Engineering Operations Committee

was created in 2012 to meet this goal through bundled

purchasing of clinical equipment, best-value sourcing of parts

and services, shared training on clinical equipment, and asset

recovery/redeployment. In 2023, this committee continued

these activities and saved our member organizations a total of

$125 million. These clinical engineering efforts are responsible

for more than $617 million in savings for BJCC members since

the formation of BJCC.

In addition, BJCC’s previous cost-savings initiatives in areas like

supply chain and information technology accounted for $129

million in savings throughout the years — totaling over $746

million in savings for BJCC members since 2012.

Looking Forward

The BJC Collaborative will continue building on our previous

years of collaboration in 2024. We look forward to hosting

our human resources leaders for their  rst retreat since

the COVID-19 pandemic, convening Presidents and CEOs

for multiple in-person board meetings, hosting strategy

discussions on new opportunities for collaboration, and

continuing to  nd new and innovative opportunities for

savings across our members.

ARKANSAS

OKLAHOMA

KANSAS

MISSOURI

ILLINOIS

NEBRASKA

IOWA

BJC Health System

West Region

Kansas City

Southern Illinois

Healthcare

Carbondale

BJC Health System

East Region

St. Louis

Blessing

Health System

Quincy

CoxHealth

Springeld

Phelps Health

Rolla

Sarah Bush

Lincoln

Health System

Mattoon

Memorial Health

Springeld

BJC COLLABORATIVE MEMBERS — 2024

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BJCCollaborative.org