HLTHWorks Accepts the Challenge
Getting Healthcare Closer to Good: the 2026 Plan
How HLTHWorks Is Helping Health Plans, ACOs, and Health Systems Break Silos and Build Local Collaboration That Actually Works
Healthcare in America is not broken because people don’t care.
It’s broken because too many well-intentioned people are trapped inside fragmented systems.
In our earlier “2025 Healthcare Mediocrity” blog, we named the uncomfortable truth:
Healthcare has become optimized for compliance, survival, and incrementalism—not outcomes, not experience, not excellence.
At HLTHWorks, we are deeply focused on changing that trajectory.
Not with buzzwords.
Not with another framework.
But with practical, execution-oriented work alongside health plans, ACOs, MSOs, and health systems who are ready to move healthcare closer to what it should be.
The Real Problem: Fragmentation Masquerading as Structure
Every organization has workgroups:
- Quality
- Risk Adjustment
- Network
- Finance
- Care Management
- Population Health
- IT / Analytics
- Compliance
- Operations
On paper, this looks like structure.
In practice, it often creates silos that actively undermine outcomes.
We routinely see:
- Quality teams chasing measures without operational integration
- Risk teams coding charts disconnected from care delivery
- Provider engagement occurring without alignment to incentives
- Care management operating separately from network strategy
- Finance making decisions without clinical or member impact visibility
- Technology teams building tools no one operationally owns
The result?
Hardworking people. Good intentions. Mediocre outcomes.
Getting Healthcare Closer to Good
We are not chasing perfection.
We are rejecting mediocrity.
“Closer to good” means:
- Fewer disconnected initiatives
- Fewer performative strategies
- Fewer dashboards without ownership
- Fewer silos pretending to be structure
And more:
- Aligned leadership
- Integrated execution
- Local collaboration
- Clinically grounded strategy
- Respect for frontline reality
- Systems designed for humans, not just regulators
This is the work HLTHWorks was built to do.
A Final Thought
The future of healthcare will not be won by the organizations with the most tools. It will be won by the organizations with the most alignment.
Alignment of:
- Purpose
- Incentives
- Structure
- Data
- Accountability
- Humanity
That’s where we focus.
That’s what we build.
That’s how healthcare moves closer to good.
What We’re Actually Building With Partners
Across our health plan, ACO, and health system partnerships, HLTHWorks is actively helping organizations:
- Build Performance Offices that integrate quality, risk, finance, and operations
- Redesign provider enablement strategies that improve outcomes instead of just reporting
- Stand up care gap closure engines that work across lines of business
- Develop Stars, HEDIS, and regulatory strategies that are operationally realistic
- Create cross-enterprise governance models
- Align value-based contracts with real operational capabilities
- Reduce administrative waste while increasing clinical effectiveness
- Embed compliance into operational excellence instead of treating it as a separate function
Not more work.
Better work.
Aligned work.
Getting Healthcare Closer to Good
We are not chasing perfection.
We are rejecting mediocrity.
“Closer to good” means:
- Fewer disconnected initiatives
- Fewer performative strategies
- Fewer dashboards without ownership
- Fewer silos pretending to be structure
And more:
- Aligned leadership
- Integrated execution
- Local collaboration
- Clinically grounded strategy
- Respect for frontline reality
- Systems designed for humans, not just regulators
This is the work HLTHWorks was built to do.
A Final Thought
The future of healthcare will not be won by the organizations with the most tools. It will be won by the organizations with the most alignment.
Alignment of:
- Purpose
- Incentives
- Structure
- Data
- Accountability
- Humanity
That’s where we focus.
That’s what we build.
That’s how healthcare moves closer to good.
Moving from Measurement to Meaning
One of the most damaging shifts in modern healthcare has been the move from purpose to performance metrics.
Stars. HEDIS. RAF. Benchmarks. KPIs. Scorecards. Dashboards.
Measurement matters.
But measurement without meaning creates burnout, gaming, and disengagement.
Our work focuses on reconnecting performance to purpose:
- Quality measures connected to actual patient journeys
- Risk adjustment connected to clinical accuracy and care planning
- Provider performance connected to real support, not punitive oversight
- Member engagement designed for dignity, not compliance
- Compliance embedded into workflows rather than layered on top
