PRWeb – “Partnering” is a healthcare industry trend that appears to be gaining momentum, according to a recent survey of California-based healthcare executives, taken following the Supreme Court’s decision to largely uphold the Affordable Care Act. The survey, conducted in July by the Adaptive Business Leaders (ABL) Organization, an executive networking and peer-advisory group for healthcare leaders, posed questions to 249 respondents, consisting of CEOs, presidents, and division general managers, who represent a range of sectors within the healthcare industry – self-identified as healthcare providers (44 percent), life science (21 percent), service providers (16 percent), health information technology (10 percent), and payers/insurance-related companies (9 percent). In the ABL survey, when asked if, “Due to Healthcare Reform, do you expect your organization will ‘partner’ with other organizations?,” of the 249 respondents, 37 percent shared they “expect more partnerships,” and another 35 percent indicated they were “already heading that way.” Only 10 percent agreed with the statement that they percent were “well positioned, with no further need to partner,” and 18 percent didn’t know or had “other” responses. “Beyond the industry’s recent wave of headline-making, billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions, healthcare organizations of all types are forging relationships with other providers, payers and suppliers,” noted Mimi Grant, president of ABL Organization. “We’ve been hearing dramatic evidence of this in our confidential Healthcare Round Tables for months now,” she continued, “but when you see that 72 percent of our survey respondents are definitely of a ‘partnering mindset,’ that’s indicative of an industry-wide trend.” Two groups that stood in contrast with each other on several survey questions were providers (such as, hospitals, medical groups, home health, and ancillary providers) and those from the life sciences industry (medical device and biotechnology/pharmaceutical companies). Comparing the providers with the life scientists: a total of 64 percent of the providers were bullish on partnerships, with 34 percent expecting more partnerships, and with 30 percent reporting that they were already on track to do more. Among the life scientists, a total of 78 percent were of a partnering mindset, with 23 percent expecting to do more partnerships, while 55 percent were already headed in that direction before healthcare reform. Partnerships in the field of biotechnology have a wide variety of financial benefits too. For example, most biotechnology projects are unable to take place without the financial and academic contributions of investors such as Lindsay Rosenwald. To learn more about financing biotechnology projects go to lindsayrosenwaldfacts.wordpress.com. The ABL survey was distributed in response to the Supreme Court’s upholding most of the planks in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), in an effort to learn the impact the ACA has already had – and is anticipated to have – on the healthcare industry. In addition to partnering, the survey addressed opportunities for growth, healthcare industry consolidation, greater transparency – particularly in pricing and outcomes, value-pricing, cost-cutting, and the ACA’s impact on society in general. The entire survey and its results are available by contacting [email protected]; the first press release in this series is available here.