Executive Summary
As healthcare leaders face rising demand amid constrained staffing, traditional responses—longer hours, tighter schedules, and added pressure—are proving unsustainable.
This brief outlines why those approaches fail and how FQHCs can expand access by redesigning care delivery models to protect provider capacity rather than exhaust it.
The False Fix
When access pressure rises, leadership often defaults to:
- Double booking schedules to offset no-shows
- Extending clinic hours to absorb demand
- Increasing expectations on already-strained staff
These actions feel productive, but they rely on extracting more effort from finite human resources.
Why It Fails
These tactics:
- Optimize for physical presence instead of care design
- Ignore the limits of provider energy and focus
- Accelerate burnout, turnover, and care variability
Short-term throughput improves—but system stability erodes.
The Real Constraint
The true bottleneck in care delivery is not space or funding. It is provider capacity—defined by:
- Time,
- Energy
- and schedule predictability.
Without protecting these, access gains cannot be sustained.
The Strategic Shift
Leading organizations are moving from additive fixes to care model redesign, including:
- Hybrid care delivery (in-person + virtual)
- Telehealth and telebehavioral health as core capacity tools
- Team-based and asynchronous workflows
The goal is not more technology—but better alignment between care delivery and human capacity.
What Success Looks Like
- Predictable provider schedules
- Lower burnout and higher retention
- Expanded patient access without new hires
Sustainable access comes from system design—not from asking people to work harder.
Leadership Question
If staffing levels remained unchanged next year, what would need to change in how care is delivered to meet demand sustainably?
Cura Consulting Group
Modernizing healthcare operations through strategic care delivery design.
