The 2017 Fastest Growing Firms: Germane Solutions

Boll: Virtually every health system in the country has recognized the need to rapidly expand clinical training, especially for physicians to provide health professionals to support their patient care operations. We diversified our expertise areas by acquiring a smaller firm who solely provides FQHC expertise, which is a large and growing segment serving the primary care market in this country.

Consulting:  How is this year shaping up for your firm? 

Boll: We are wrapping up this year strong and we will continue to grow, hiring additional resources and subject matter experts to support new long-term projects. We will spend the remainder of the year investing in our technology division, further developing our in-house solution—PROMPT—an enterprise management tool that helps teaching hospitals evaluate their residency programs by tracking their residents' practice habits and evaluate the effectiveness of clinical training activities sponsored by the hospital.

Consulting: What's your firm's outlook for 2018?  

Boll: In 2018, we expect the market demand to remain very strong in both clinical training and quality outcomes consulting. We are putting together multi-year programs to support new teaching hospitals in the 5 to 7-year period to plan, start, and mature clinical training. We continue to add products and services to the 1000 existing teaching hospitals. There is a tremendous interest in more integrated team-based clinical training, incorporating all health professionals who need clinical training experience. This past year, we've made tremendous strides developing the framework to dominate in this key market area in the future. Approximately 200 medical schools are now competing with each other for clinical training sites which are now controlled by a smaller number of health systems. There will be fallout for medical schools that can't bring a comprehensive clinical training solution and training model to partner with health systems in the future.

Consulting:  What would you say are your firm's biggest challenges in 2018? 

Boll: In consulting, more people are needed to match growth. As you add people, time and energy must be spent to maintain our culture which has been the reason for our current success and is critical to its continued success.

Consulting:  What does being named one of Consulting's Fastest Growing Firms mean to your firm, your employees and your clients? 

Boll: It's validating the business decisions we've made around expanding our expertise areas and doubling down on our priority of improving clinical training and quality outcomes in the health care market. We have demonstrated that there is a significant marketplace need in the areas we have served where other consulting firms felt that these areas of consulting were too small or too technical.