As hospital and health system CEOs work to advance key strategies in 2026 — from ambulatory investments to artificial intelligence integration — which numbers are guiding them?
While there is no single metric shaping strategy, four executives told Becker’s they are sharpening their focus on performance indicators they have long prioritized, including patient flow, workforce retention and quality outcomes.
For example, Patty Maysent, CEO of UC San Diego Health, plans to revamp the system’s dashboards in 2026 to focus more directly on systemwide performance for patient flow.
“We’re going to be really focused this next year on accelerating our mission control, because we’re so over capacity,” Ms. Maysent said. “So how we flow patients through our system, and the metrics around that — whether it’s the patient having that first appointment once they’re discharged, or the readmission scores, or the length of stay — any metric around how they’re flowing through our system, are the metrics we’re going to be revamping and ultra focused on.”
Unique patients served
Tulsa, Okla.-based Saint Francis Health System has added a metric to its scorecard. As the system moves away from fee-for-service care and toward managed population health, it is measuring growth around the number of unique patients served, President and CEO Cliff Robertson, MD, told Becker’s.
“We’re now redefining growth as we want to serve a million unique patients, and next year, we want to serve 1.1 million unique patients,” Dr. Robertson said, adding that it includes patients who receive care through hospital stays, emergency department visits, urgent care centers or physician appointments. “It’s a broad definition of interaction with the patient, but our objective is to show that we can continue to care for more of our community on a year-over-year basis.”
Flow and throughput
Heading into 2026, Colin McHugh, president and CEO of Nashua-based Southern New Hampshire Health, is focused on strengthening operating discipline and maintaining the health system’s monthly operating review, which tracks metrics across departments, such as quality indicators and productivity. In the new year, flow and throughput metrics will take on even greater importance, Mr. McHugh told Becker’s.
“What we have found is that a lot of our issues as a health system stem from when we’re not able to move patients efficiently through the hospital,” he said. “It creates challenges in the ED, it creates constraints on the floors. We’re going to spend a lot more time continuing to manage flow and throughput. That is also going to require us taking a hard look at supports in the community — oftentimes, where our flow and throughput is impacted by not being able to place patients in the community, such as not enough skilled nursing beds.”
He is also sharpening focus on two workforce-related metrics: recruitment and retention.
“These are two metrics that we’ve spent a lot of time reviewing, but we’re going to continue to lean into that, making sure that we have the right attributes as a health system, both to attract talent, but also retain that talent,” he said.
CMS five-star ratings
In 2026, Peoria, Ill.-based OSF HealthCare is placing greater emphasis on quality metrics, particularly CMS five-star ratings, CEO Bob Sehring told Becker’s.
“We have always had a focus on quality and safety,” Mr. Sehring said. “No doubt it’s vitally important, but we’re really putting a stake in the ground to say, not only is it important that we provide outstanding care to every patient every time, we believe we should be five stars for every one of our facilities — and we’re not there today.”
Achieving that level of performance across the ministry will be difficult.
“Doing it at one hospital is a challenge. Doing it at 17 is even a higher challenge,” Mr. Sehring said. “But every one of our patients, no matter which of our markets they are in, deserves that highest level of care.”
He said OSF will use five-star ratings as a benchmark for quality and safety, supported by metrics such as readmissions, length of stay and patient satisfaction.
