Benchmark as a starting point
As a starting point for the substantive and financial agreements, we investigated how Parnassia performs relative to other mental health care providers. This turned out to be complicated, because Parnassia is not easy to compare with other institutions. It is the largest regional provider in three regions, but also delivers a lot of care outside that core area. As a result, its portfolio looks fundamentally different from that of other providers. To still arrive at a fair comparison, we looked at Parnassia’s position in its core regions, against mental health providers that are primarily active in a single region. We built this analysis specifically for Parnassia, and they used the results in their conversations with health insurers and other funders. It showed that, in its core regions, Parnassia performs relatively well on important parameters such as length of treatment, admission rate and consequently average cost per client.

Multidimensional steering
Parnassia then asked us to critically examine their steering philosophy. The group consists of several units with their own expertise, which arose through mergers and growth. Nationally, there is a clear movement toward integrated care in the region. We therefore investigated how Parnassia can steer both on product groups and target groups, and on regional goals.

Concretely, this meant a thorough revision of the steering methodology. Previously, the Executive Board mainly spoke with the national business units about budgets and results, with no formalized integrated dialogue with the providers active in the same region. Gupta developed a model that allows Parnassia to steer multi-dimensionally: both on business units and on regions. We also worked out which agreements are needed between the board and the divisions, and where each mandate sits. The result is a new steering philosophy and methodology that fits better with the movement toward regional and integrated care.