Tell the Story Behind the Numbers: Finance Tips from Healthcare Leaders

Furthering our commitment to sharing knowledge across the healthcare system, we recently had the pleasure of partnering with Spark Conferences on their 2025 National Healthcare Finance Conference.

Check out our top takeaways from the two days of learning that covered topics including planning capital spending projects, tips for small and rural healthcare organizations, and effective digital transformation.

Planning capital spending projects

Capital spending projects require significant investments and planning, so a panel of speakers shared some key considerations. We heard from John Marshman, VP, Capital Facilities & Business Development, Southlake Health; Nathalie Fauvel, Senior VP of Corporate Services, Capital Programs & CFO, CHEO; and Cliff Harvey, VP, Redevelopment, Waterloo Regional Health Network, with moderator Dee Perera, CFO, Northumberland Hills Hospital.

TIP Align all capital spending projects for your existing facilities with your organization’s strategic plan. This ensures your regular, ongoing operations are maintained and budgeted for, which should be prioritized over new projects, and that all capital spending plans are regularly reviewed with your strategic plan.

We should consider how to cost-optimize care settings in and outside hospitals, including primary care, and acknowledge that building bigger facilities is not always the answer. However, if you are starting a new building, ensure it has capacity to grow to prevent getting outdated quickly. “We’re building for the next 50 years,” Fauvel said.

And remember, the new building isn’t the final product, it is all the people it helps. “We’re not trying to create icons; we’re trying to drive care that will help the population,” Marshman added.

Using data for financial sustainability

Next, panel speakers (pictured below L-R) Perera; Ken Klassen, VP, Corporate Services & CFO, Shared Health (MB), and HIROC board member; Greg Chow, VP Finance, CFO, Mackenzie Health; Natalie Urquhart, VP, Corporate Services & CFO, Horizon Health (NB); and Bessy Leung, VP, Corporate Services & CFO, CAMH, discussed using data to support your financial planning.

We can use data to identify best practices based on solid evidence and prioritize spending. “Data is so important and provides comparability between sites and community services of similar sizes to see what’s working and what’s not working in different places,” Klassen said.

Financial sustainability can be supported through:

• Measures for accountability for all levels of staff
• Embedded cost accounting culture in your operations
• Tools for proper cost forecasting
• Embedded finance team with operations team because you must know your operating expenses to accurately plan finances

There are also a variety of revenue streams to explore, such as opening restaurants or shops on your campus and using partners from the community and for-profit sectors. 

To make a successful funding pitch, “tell the story behind the numbers, and to tell the story you need the data,” Leung explained.

TIP Creating waste is costly, so tracking waste data can also be helpful. Comparing like-sized facilities’ waste data helps identify gaps and opportunities to improve delivery and cut costs on food, product, and environmental waste. And consider vendor performance management tracking and reporting.

Tips for small and rural healthcare organizations

Brittany Rivard, CFO & VP, Operation, Kemptville District Hospital, shared several tips for small and rural healthcare organizations and noted that financial stability relies on prevention over crisis management.

Small and rural organizations can use pilot programs, create partnerships, and align their financial and strategic plans with government.

TIP Internal and external pilot programs offer a valuable way to test out low-risk, small-scale innovations and prove their efficacy before making a bigger change. They help bridge gaps between theoretical knowledge and practice. Small hospitals also need less investment to innovate.

One example Rivard shared was an internal pilot program to add a third nurse to their emergency department. This was a strategic financial decision with the pilot allowing them to use temporary contracts to show proof of concept for six months before full adoption. It was a resounding success reducing overtime hours, staff burnout, and agency costs.

Partnerships with other organizations can enhance small hospital capacity. It is also important to consider your foundation and donors as key partners too. 

“Partner or perish,” Rivard highlighted. “Small hospitals cannot succeed in isolation—we have to collaborate.”

Lastly, ensuring your priorities align with those from the federal and provincial governments is critical for using all available funding. Align your initiatives to mandatory government programs, explore different funding streams such as the Quality-Based Procedure program, and prove their cost-savings and measurable impact. Know your unique value proposition and areas of excellence and highlight that.

Effective digital transformation

Finally, Darlene Dasent, EVP and CFO, and Mikhail Zaitsev, Executive Director of Finance, Altum Health, Digital & Revenue, from University Health Network (UHN) shared learnings during a fireside chat with Mike Gourlay, VP, Finance & Support Services & CFO, Waterloo Regional Health Network.

They spoke about UHN’s recent digital transformations that include adopting a new health information system and enterprise resource planning software.

TIP There are several key parts to implement a successful, large-scale change:

• Prioritize culture, values, and patient and team experience and reflect this in your return on investment
• Reposition digital investments as core infrastructure
• Empower leaders to change
• Tailor approach to organizational impact
• Prepare for unknowns because estimates (cost, benefits, etc.) are not static
• Ensure long-term funding to implement and maintain the new system

Dasent and Zaitsev also shared lessons learned for large-scale projects:

• Try to prioritize the larger project across the organization and put other priorities on hold to make the most progress
• Huge contributions are needed from teams across the organization to implement new wide-ranging systems
• Define the purpose of tracking all costs and benefits and identify both those you need to track and those you don’t
• Use a hybrid approach to manage costs by separating implementation costs from maintenance costs post-implementation

Thank you to Spark Conferences for putting on another informative event! We look forward to seeing you next year!

If your organization has a story or event, reach out to us at [email protected] so we can share your learnings with the rest of our healthcare community.

By Gillian Brandon-Hart, Communications & Marketing Specialist