As we see the healthcare world continue to consolidate, mergers and acquisitions are becoming the lay of the land. But although the process of merging two different (sometimes very different) cultures is becoming more common, it's not getting any easier. In fact, for several of our current and former healthcare clients, it's very, very challenging. 

As I said in my recent article for Hospital Impact, even though mergers may make good business sense, they tend to create a “flight or fight” response in the people in the organization being merged or acquired. Why? Because people just hate change.

Staff members (medical or not) usually are not happy in the new, merged world—they liked the one they had before. They're not sure how well they fit into the new organization's culture so they tend to assume the worst. 

Mergers are really hard on physicians and staff

From a series of interviews we conducted with doctors, nurses and support staff, we learned that people who have gone through a merger or acquisition are angry and irritated. While they are making more money in many cases, and their offices may be running more efficiently, they are unhappy. There are many reasons for this, namely:

Do you know who is going to care for you when you are old and frail? If the current trend continues, it's probably going to be a middle-aged immigrant woman with (maybe) a high school education and little or no training, making $20,000 a year, reports The New York Times.

And that's if you live in or near a big city, the article says. By contrast, if you live in rural America, you'll have a hard time finding someone to look after you. And the situation is only going to get worse. According to MIT's Sloan School of Management, if nothing is done to draw more workers into the field, there will be a shortage of at least 350,000 home-care providers by 2024.

The challenge: How to transform long-term care into good-paying jobs

Have you noticed? Healthcare organizations are consolidating left, right and center—particularly the ones I've been working with recently in the Northeast Corridor. Hospitals, physicians and ancillary services are now having to adjust to this major disruption which, for many of them, is understandably difficult.

This current wave of healthcare system consolidation is also causing a lot of confusion for the remaining independent providers, home health providers, visiting nurses, special purpose centers, and last but not least, consumers.

I recently wrote a blog for Hospital Impact (the first in a series) zeroing in on the unintended consequences of healthcare systems integration. I invite you to read it here. The biggest impact I am seeing out in the field? That big consolidations are having big consequences.