Meet The Manchester Group Partners
MICHAEL SNIFFEN
Michael has 30 years of extensive healthcare experience. He began his career in the finance division of a major academic medical center, and he rapidly progressed to a joint leadership position in strategic planning for both the hospital and medical school. His first challenge in this capacity was to negotiate a settlement of a decade-long dispute between the two parties. This success was followed by the development of a $450 million strategic plan, with programmatic, financial, facility, operational and philanthropic components. The decade-long implementation successfully positioned the organization for the future. Concurrently, he organized an internal consulting and management team that successfully addressed planning and operational issues and provided interim staff for new and existing initiatives.
He later rose to the position of CEO, leading a major teaching hospital’s transformation from a stand-alone hospital, with bond covenant violations, to an integrated health system with a strong balance sheet. This was accomplished through strategic acquisitions, key recruitments and operational improvement in cost control and revenue enhancement. This venture was followed by the merger of the system with two other systems. Michael served as the initial COO and architect of this regional system. He led a $70 million improvement agenda that more than justified the creation of this system; the development of numerous program improvements and distributions and the integration of an additional hospital into the system.
Michael then founded Manchester Strategies which has evolved into The Manchester Group. The Group’s clients include knowledge transfer companies in performance improvement, compliance and clinical imaging, a major health insurer for whom he conducted an extensive study of provider relationships and a major private equity fund for investment evaluations.
Michael provided interim executive leadership to a health system of two faith-based organizations, which -- prior to his arrival -- had petitioned the Court to dissolve their merger. Working with the local court, he successfully de-merged these two organizations, while significantly improving the financial positions of each facility. He satisfied the bond insurer, state, and the sponsors by his objective commitment to improvement and neutral decision-making. During this engagement he was challenged to work with a contentious Board, medical staffs and employees.
Recently, Michael was engaged by a private equity partnership to assess an international hospital company as a potential investment.
Most recently, Michael has been advising the leadership of a major regional health plan on a wide range of subjects and issues.
Michael has been recertified as a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE). He holds a Master’s of Business Administration in hospital administration and serves on the Board of a performance improvement company. He is a frequent guest lecturer and has served in leadership positions for national health policy initiatives and studies.