Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ: HURN), a leading provider of business consulting services, today announced the release of a new Huron Healthcare report which indicates that even healthy hospitals will need to reduce cost by 20-40 percent. In addition, the report notes that this year hospital and health system CEOs will be addressing transformative changes to the way care is delivered and striving to integrate this change across the enterprise.

The report, "Achieving Healthcare Transformation: Insights from the Huron Healthcare CEO Forum," provides perspectives from nearly 25 executives from healthcare organizations around the country who participated in the fourth annual Huron Healthcare CEO Forum.

"To successfully implement this magnitude of change, healthcare leaders are examining key aspects of their business, and determining their path forward," said Gordon Mountford, executive vice president, Huron Healthcare. "Clinical transformation, revenue transition, scale and integration, and operational excellence are the four levers they will need to pull - in varying combinations - to achieve quality and financial goals, and advance their missions."

In the Huron Healthcare report the CEOs discussed their visions for the future, and three key themes for creating a foundation for success in 2014 emerged:

EVOLVE: Transitioning revenue streams. Organizations have begun to commit resources toward the fee-for-value model, but the majority of revenue is still tied to the fee-for-service model. Executives are bridging the two models through traditional cost-cutting and revenue-enhancement approaches, as well as exploring alternative revenue streams.

"The first core is our healthcare provider business. The second core is the health plan, and the third core is new businesses - entrepreneurial investments - where we can generate revenue without relying solely on revenue from third-party reimbursement." - David Bernd, CEO, Sentara Healthcare and CEO Forum Co-chair

INTEGRATE: Achieving clinical integration. Clinical integration is essential to lowering the total cost of care and achieving success in the post-reform environment. Healthcare leaders are creating new organizational and governance structures that support clinical integration - as well as high-value, more affordable care.

"We have everyone economically and strategically aligned for the first time. We are now evaluating new ways to manage and govern the clinical enterprise." - Dean Harrison, president and CEO, Northwestern Memorial HealthCare

LEAD: Developing talent for the future. New payment and care delivery models require new leadership competencies, many of which may need to come from outside traditional healthcare paradigms and roles.

"You can't hire leaders who have everything you need for tomorrow because you don't know what tomorrow looks like. You can hire people who are both talented and incredibly compassionate - and who will come to work every day with integrity, humility, and passion. People with those traits are the people I want interacting with my staff and with my patients. Those values are really important to me and to our current team, and we frequently talk about how those are expressed." - David Feinberg, M.D., president, UCLA Health System and CEO Forum Chair

"Achieving transformation of the healthcare enterprise - improving performance by 20 to 40 percent while transforming care delivery and incorporating new payment models - continues to be a major leadership challenge for healthcare executives," said Dr. Andy Ziskind, managing director and Clinical solutions leader, Huron Healthcare. "As CEOs lead their organizations through this evolution and its many challenges, the benefits of success are becoming a reality: higher quality care that is more affordable, innovative, and accessible."

Achieving Healthcare Transformation: Insights from the Huron Healthcare CEO Forum is available for download at www.HealthcareCEOForum.com.

About Huron Healthcare

Huron Healthcare is the premier provider of performance improvement and clinical transformation solutions for hospitals and health systems. By partnering with clients, Huron delivers strategy and solutions that improve quality, increase revenue, reduce expenses, and enhance physician, patient, and employee satisfaction across the healthcare enterprise. Clients include leading national and regional integrated healthcare systems, academic medical centers, community hospitals and physician practices. Modern Healthcare ranked Huron Healthcare third on its 2013 list of the largest healthcare management consulting firms. Learn more at www.huronconsultinggroup.com/healthcare or follow us on Twitter: @Huron.

About Huron Consulting Group

Huron Consulting Group helps clients in diverse industries improve performance, reduce costs, leverage technology, process and review large amounts of complex data, address regulatory changes, recover from distress and stimulate growth. Our professionals employ their expertise in administration, management, finance, operations, strategy and technology to provide our clients with specialized analyses and customized advice and solutions that are tailored to address each client's particular challenges and opportunities to deliver sustainable and measurable results. The Company provides consulting services to a wide variety of both financially sound and distressed organizations, including healthcare organizations, leading academic institutions, Fortune 500 companies, governmental entities and law firms. Huron has worked with more than 90 of the top 100 research universities, more than 400 corporate general counsel, and more than 385 hospitals and academic medical centers. Learn more at www.huronconsultinggroup.com.

Huron Consulting Group
Jennifer Frost Hennagir, 312-880-3260
jfrost-hennagir@huronconsultinggroup.com