The Cost of Waiting: Why Healthcare Can't Afford Slow Decisions with Mark Van Sumeren
On this episode of I Don't Care with Dr. Kevin Stevenson, healthcare strategist Mark Van Sumeren discusses why healthcare organizations often struggle with slow decision-making, citing structural causes like unclear decision authority and misaligned incentives. He and Stevenson advocate for "deliberate speed"—clarifying who owns a decision, what information is needed, and when it must be made—amid tightening margins and rapid change.
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Key takeaways
Healthcare organizations often move slowly on decisions due to consensus-driven governance, unclear decision authority, misaligned incentives, and reluctance to accept failure.
Van Sumeren describes 'decision pace is capacity' and advocates for 'deliberate speed'—thoughtful decisions made without letting deliberation itself become the obstacle.
The conversation highlights opportunities in nonclinical spending and lessons healthcare can learn from industries with greater financial and operational discipline.
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Healthcare organizations spend enormous amounts of time developing strategies, analyzing opportunities, and discussing transformation. The challenge often comes when it is time to actually make a decision.
On this episode of I Don’t Care with Dr. Kevin Stevenson, Dr. Kevin Stevenson welcomes Mark Van Sumeren, a healthcare strategist whose 45-year career has spanned health systems, consulting, supply chain, publicly traded companies, and private equity-backed organizations. That experience has given Van Sumeren a unique perspective on why healthcare organizations often move more slowly than their counterparts in other industries.
Central to the conversation is Van Sumeren’s observation that “decision pace is capacity.”
The structural reasons for slow decision-making
Stevenson and Van Sumeren explore the structural reasons behind healthcare’s tendency toward “paralysis by analysis,” including consensus-driven governance, unclear decision authority, misaligned incentives, and an organizational reluctance to accept failure. They discuss the need for what Van Sumeren calls deliberate speed—making thoughtful, informed decisions without allowing deliberation itself to become the obstacle.
Learning from other industries
The conversation also examines healthcare supply chain strategy, the significant opportunity surrounding nonclinical spending, and what health systems can learn from industries that operate with greater financial and operational discipline.
The message is not that healthcare should simply move faster. It is that organizations must become better at determining who owns a decision, what information is necessary to make it, and when that decision must be made. In an environment of tightening margins, workforce shortages, and rapid technological change, the cost of waiting continues to grow.
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