Why Protecting Legacies is Good Business

At Specialty Medical Partners, we’re in the business of protecting legacies.

I recently had the pleasure of reflecting on this in a profile piece published in the Globe and Mail about why Humber Valley Imaging decided to become an SMP partner practice.

Here’s an excerpt:

Michael Black, Chief Executive Officer of SMP, said SMP was different from many other medical-practice roll-ups by not interfering with the medical decision making at its clinics.

“In most cases, if you take control away from the people who know what’s best for their team and their patients, that’s just going to destroy what made the practice successful and leave everyone worse off,” he said, adding: “This is the main reason why Humber Valley Imaging chose to work with us and why we wanted to work with them.”

As highlighted in the article, this approach to medical practice consolidation represents a shift in Canada’s healthcare industry. What we’re offering at SMP doesn’t otherwise exist for medical practices like Humber Valley Imaging: a way to reduce their administrative burden while gaining financial and operational backing, without losing any control over the way they provide care to the communities they serve.

Why are we interested in helping specialty care providers protect their legacies?

Helping our partners continue to make a meaningful difference in Canada’s health system is how we plan to maintain a sustainable business model.

Unlike organizations focused solely on maximizing financial outcomes from medical practice acquisitions, SMP is more interested in building for the future.

Why? Because we recognize that investing in outpatient specialty care is key to keeping Canada’s healthcare system from collapsing under increasing strain.

Across the country, more and more people are struggling to secure a regular primary care provider, hospitals are overwhelmed, and wait times for specialist care are getting longer and longer.

Outpatient practices can go a long way to relieve pressure from hospitals and improve access to care. But this area of the healthcare landscape remains underdeveloped in Canada.

Specialty care physicians need to be empowered to continue providing and expanding services at the community level.

That’s why we’re committed to helping specialty care practices build and protect their legacies in the following ways.

1) Learning from our partners 

When a medical practice joins SMP, we work closely with the practice owners to get to know how they manage their operations and develop recommendations for improvement.

Our partner practices will always retain control over decisions that impact their day-to-day operations, and any changes we suggest will always be connected to their vision and goals.

At the same time, being part of a partnership provides opportunities to learn lessons from other practices.

2) Taking time to make changes

In most cases, SMP will take at least six months before implementing any operational changes with a partner practice.

Taking time to establish what changes a practice should make and why is not only important for securing buy-in from practice owners and team members, but critical for ensuring operational improvements are implemented smoothly and successfully.

3) A culture of shared ownership

Our partners are co-owners who share in our mission and values, working together toward a vision to transform Canada’s health system through a unified approach to community-based specialty services. This alignment fosters innovation, resilience, and a focus on improving patient outcomes, while ensuring stable leadership and sustainable growth.

Author: Michael Black, CEO, Specialty Medical Partners

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