According to Gallup, more than half of the U.S. rates the country’s healthcare quality as subpar. And according to Bloomberg, more than half of U.S. hospitals expect to lose money this year. Yet, for decades, hospitals in the U.S. have been operating the exact same way. NYU Langone Health was no different. Ranked 60th out of 90 academic medical centers in the U.S., the 175 year old health system was unranked, underperforming, and unprofitable. The institution had a structural deficit of over $150 million. It took weeks to fix a single broken pipe and months to send a single email. We were an organization that was out of touch with the times and ill-prepared for the future. The entire organization was in a state of near-collapse.

In order to transform our business, we realized we needed to treat our health system like a patient. We looked beyond the obvious symptoms of broken infrastructure, outdated technology, and out-of-touch marketing and deeply examined our mentality, history, and habits. We interviewed thousands of staff from every role at our hospitals, medical schools, and maintenance teams and uncovered a previously undetectable condition that was plaguing our institution. And it was embedded in our very DNA: a culture of complacency.

So we shifted our efforts to rewire our health system to eliminate complacency and embrace disruption. We stopped operating like a business and started thinking like doctors, empowering our staff to ask provocative questions like “why are the hospital and medical school separate from one another?”, “why is there no diversity among medical students?”, “why do patients have to keep repeating their medical history all the time?”, and “why does your zip code determine your health outcomes?”

“[In 2018], NYU Langone Health captured the attention of the world with the surprise announcement that all their medical school students would receive full tuition scholarships. That announcement was only the latest in a series of stunning moves by the New York medical center that has transformed from a faded, money losing institution into a world class academic medical center. Over the course of a decade, NYU Langone went from an unprofitable, poorly ranked medical institution to a global leader in patient care, education, and research, while generating a substantial surplus. The story of NYU Langone Health offers lessons for enterprise transformation that transcend healthcare. If you are in a retail business, the story will help you improve customer service and satisfaction. If you are in manufacturing, the NYU story will help achieve zero fault. If you are in the service business, the NYU Langone approach to information systems and dashboards will help you improve performance and accountability. If you are a university, this story will help you achieve excellence in teaching and improve your rankings.” — Forbes

Over the course of a decade, NYU Langone transformed from #60 to #1 in the U.S. for quality care. Our story caught the attention of Harvard Business Review and inspired an Amazon best-selling novel, “World Class: A story of Adversity, Transformation, and Success at NYU Langone Health.” We were 2022’s most awarded health system, earning recognition for the first time in history as the #1 hospital in New York. We became the first in history to integrate a hospital with a medical school — transforming into a fully integrated academic medical system. Our shift from treating health to treating fear during the pandemic drove 2.2 million appointments that would otherwise not have taken place and was named “The Best Response to Change” by The Drum in 2022. We were the first major medical school in U.S. history to become 100% tuition free and eliminate ~$250K in debt per student and create space for more diverse applicants. Our creative campaigns increased brand perception by 4.5% and increased appointments by 186%. And we ultimately turned a structural deficit of $150MM into a surplus of $240MM that gets reinvested in the resilience of our infrastructure.