About
About Operating Patterns
Our Mission
Operating Patterns for Digital-Age Healthcare is dedicated to documenting and sharing proven organizational patterns that enable healthcare systems to deliver better care while navigating the complexities of digital transformation.
What We Do
We identify, document, and share operating patterns that healthcare organizations use to:
- Organize clinical and operational work more effectively
- Balance autonomy with coordination across service lines and departments
- Enable innovation while maintaining compliance and quality
- Build sustainable systems that adapt to changing market conditions
- Foster collaboration between clinical, operational, and technology teams
What Are Operating Patterns?
Operating patterns are repeatable organizational structures, governance models, and management approaches that solve recurring challenges in healthcare delivery and operations. They represent the “how” of running healthcare organizations—the structures and processes that enable strategy to be executed effectively.
Unlike best practices that might be unique to one organization, operating patterns represent approaches that have been successfully implemented in multiple healthcare contexts and can be adapted to different organizational sizes, cultures, and strategies.
Why This Matters
Healthcare organizations today face unprecedented challenges:
- Digital transformation is accelerating but remains difficult to implement
- Consolidation and scale require balancing centralization with local autonomy
- Innovation pressure demands faster decision-making and experimentation
- Regulatory complexity requires robust governance frameworks
- Workforce change requires new organizational structures
Operating patterns provide a shared vocabulary and proven approaches for addressing these challenges.
How to Use This Resource
- Browse Patterns - Explore the collection of operating patterns relevant to your challenges
- Study Examples - See how other healthcare organizations have implemented these patterns
- Adapt to Your Context - Use these as a starting point for designing solutions specific to your organization’s needs
- Share Your Experience - Contribute your own implementations and learnings
Who This Is For
- Healthcare executives and leaders designing organizational structures
- Operations and finance leaders implementing shared services or service line models
- IT leaders building platforms and technology governance
- Clinical leaders navigating organizational change
- Consultants and advisors working with healthcare organizations
Contributing
We welcome contributions of additional patterns, examples, and implementations. If you have an operating pattern or example to share, please contribute to this resource.
Last Updated: February 2026