What makes Frontier Strategy Partners different from other healthcare consulting firms?

Frontier Strategy Partners is led by four former hospital CEOs with over 115 years of combined healthcare leadership experience. Unlike traditional consulting firms, our team has actually run hospitals — navigating the same financial pressures, workforce challenges, and board dynamics that community hospital leaders face today.

What types of hospitals does FSP work with?

FSP specializes in community hospitals, including critical access hospitals and rural health systems, primarily across the Midwest. Our experience is most directly applicable to hospitals under 200 beds where the leadership team wears many hats and resources are constrained.

What services does Frontier Strategy Partners offer?

FSP offers healthcare strategic planning, financial performance improvement, operational excellence consulting, leadership development, interim leadership, patient experience improvement, and accreditation survey readiness.

Where is Frontier Strategy Partners located and what areas do you serve?

FSP is based in the Midwest and serves community hospitals across the region — including Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, and Wyoming. We also work with hospitals nationally.

How do I start working with Frontier Strategy Partners?

The first step is a complimentary introductory conversation. Visit frontierstrategypartners.com/contact to reach out. We will listen to your situation and share relevant experience before any commitment is made.

Jason Douglas 2/26/26 Jason Douglas 2/26/26

The Water Is Rising - What Every Leader Needs to Understand About AI Right Now

Think back to February 2020. You were probably going about your normal life — going to restaurants, shaking hands, planning trips. Maybe you had seen a headline or two about a virus spreading overseas, but life felt normal. It was normal. And then, over the course of about three weeks, everything changed. Schools closed. Offices emptied. The world rearranged itself into something you wouldn't have believed if you had described it to yourself a month earlier.

Matt Shumer, CEO of OthersideAI and a six-year veteran of the AI startup world, opens his February 2026 essay "Something Big Is Happening" — which has now been viewed by more than 50 million people in less than a month — with exactly that image. "I think we're in the 'this seems overblown' phase of something much, much bigger than Covid," he writes. That framing is worth sitting with. Not to induce panic, but because the alternative to understanding what is coming is being defined by it rather than shaping your response to it.

I'm not writing this as a technology enthusiast. I'm writing this as a healthcare executive and strategic advisor who has spent more than two decades working in environments where resources are constrained, change is constant, and the margin for error is thin. The leaders I work with are smart, experienced, and deeply committed to the people and communities they serve. Most of them have heard about AI. Many have experimented with it casually. Almost none of them have reckoned with what is actually happening right now — and what it means for them, their organizations, and the people who depend on them.

This piece draws on two remarkable works published in early 2026: Shumer's blog post and Howard Marks' February 26 memo "AI Hurtles Ahead" from Oaktree Capital Management. Together, they offer something rare: the urgency of a practitioner experiencing the shift in real time, paired with the measured analytical discipline of one of the most respected investors of the past half century. My goal is to synthesize their insights and translate them into something actionable for leaders operating in any sector — healthcare, finance, law, manufacturing, education, and beyond.