How to choose the right consulting model for your health professions program
Health professions leaders bring in outside expertise for very different reasons.
Sometimes there is a specific problem to solve: an accreditation review is approaching, a feasibility study is needed, or a curriculum needs to be redesigned.
Sometimes the work is larger and more structured: an institution is developing a new program or undertaking a significant modernization initiative.
And sometimes there isn’t one project at all. Leadership is managing a series of interconnected priorities—accreditation, enrollment, faculty capacity, curriculum, clinical education, program performance—and needs access to specialized expertise over time.
Those situations shouldn’t require the same consulting model.
Strelis Consulting & Advisory Services offers three ways to engage: Project-Based Consulting, Packaged Services, and the Program Excellence Partnership. Each provides access to Strelis’ multidisciplinary health professions expertise, but the scope, structure, and duration of support are different.
The right model depends on a straightforward question:
Are you solving a defined problem, undertaking a significant program initiative, or managing evolving priorities over time?
What are the three types of consulting engagements?
In simple terms:
- Project-Based Consulting is best for a defined need with a clear scope, outcome, and completion point.
- Packaged Services provide a structured approach to common, complex initiatives such as developing or modernizing a health professions program.
- The Program Excellence Partnership provides sustained strategic and consulting support for institutions managing multiple priorities over time.
All three draw from the same Strelis consulting practice, which supports institutions across Accreditation & Reaccreditation, Program Development & Excellence, and Growth & Modernization. Strelis assembles expertise across accreditation, curriculum, assessment, faculty, clinical education, technology, and implementation based on the work at hand.
The difference is how that expertise is organized around the institution’s needs.
When does project-based consulting make sense?
Project-Based Consulting is best when an institution has a clearly defined challenge or initiative that can be addressed within an established scope and timeline.
An institution preparing for reaccreditation, for example, may need an independent readiness assessment, self-study support, evidence mapping, or a mock site visit. Another may need a feasibility study before deciding whether to launch a program. An established program may need focused support for curriculum redesign, faculty development, or a growth strategy.
In each case, there is a recognizable outcome and a natural endpoint to the engagement.
A project-based model works particularly well when leadership can answer three questions:
What do we need to accomplish? What expertise do we need to accomplish it? When does the work need to be completed?
The scope can then be built around those answers.
For accreditation work, this might mean engaging Strelis at a particular point in the accreditation journey. For program development, it might mean evaluating market demand and financial assumptions before an institution makes a larger investment. For an existing program, it could mean developing a modernization or expansion strategy.
Consider Project-Based Consulting when: the problem is specific, the desired outcome is clear, and the institution needs targeted expertise or additional capacity to complete the work.
When are Packaged Services a better fit?
Packaged Services are designed for larger, repeatable initiatives that involve several related workstreams and benefit from a defined framework.
Developing a new health professions program is a good example.
A new program is not simply a curriculum-development project. Early decisions about market opportunity, finances, accreditation, faculty, clinical education, curriculum, assessment, technology, and operations affect one another. The Strelis Program Development framework specifically treats curriculum, assessment, faculty, clinical education, technology, and operations as components that must function as one program.
For an institution undertaking this kind of initiative, starting from a proven scope can be more efficient than creating an entirely new consulting engagement from scratch.
Packaged Services establish the major components of the work and the consulting capacity required while still allowing the engagement to reflect the institution and program.
The model is particularly useful when leadership knows what it is trying to accomplish, but the work itself involves multiple stages, decisions, and areas of expertise.
Consider Packaged Services when: the initiative is substantial but recognizable—such as developing or modernizing a specific program—and a structured path can help move the institution from planning toward implementation.
What is a Program Excellence Partnership?
The Program Excellence Partnership is an ongoing consulting and advisory relationship for institutions that need continuity across multiple or changing priorities rather than support for a single project.
That distinction matters because health professions programs rarely operate as a series of isolated initiatives.
A decision to grow enrollment may affect faculty capacity and clinical education. A curriculum change may create new assessment needs. A new delivery model may have implications for accreditation, technology, faculty development, and operations. Accreditation preparation can expose issues that require attention well beyond the accreditation process itself.
The Strelis Growth & Modernization framework reflects that interdependence: changes to enrollment, staffing, curriculum, or delivery can create effects across the entire program.
The Program Excellence Partnership is designed for that environment.
Rather than beginning a new consulting engagement each time a priority emerges, the institution establishes an ongoing relationship with Strelis. That creates continuity, proactive planning, and access to specialized expertise as priorities evolve—the same principles reflected in Strelis’ consulting model.
The objective is to shift some of the institution’s consulting relationship from episodic problem-solving to sustained program excellence.
Consider a Program Excellence Partnership when: leadership is managing multiple interconnected priorities, expects needs to evolve, or wants ongoing access to expertise and capacity rather than waiting for the next urgent issue.
Does an ongoing partnership replace project work?
No. The three models are complementary.
An institution may use project-based consulting for a highly defined initiative today and later determine that ongoing support would be valuable. A university developing a new program may begin with a structured service and require different expertise as the program progresses toward accreditation and launch.
Likewise, an institution with a Program Excellence Partnership may identify a significant initiative that requires a separately scoped project.
The point is not to fit every institutional need into one consulting structure. It is to match the structure of the engagement to the nature of the work.
How do you choose the right consulting model?
A useful starting point is to consider the scope, predictability, and duration of the need.
If your institution needs to… — Consider…
- Solve a defined challenge with a clear outcome and endpoint — Project-Based Consulting
- Develop or modernize a specific program through a structured process — Packaged Services
- Address multiple or evolving priorities with continuity over time — Program Excellence Partnership
There is another question worth asking:
Is expertise the constraint—or is capacity the constraint?
Sometimes an institution needs knowledge it does not have internally. In other cases, leaders and faculty understand exactly what needs to happen but do not have sufficient capacity to manage another complex initiative. Often, it is some combination of the two.
Strelis’ consulting model is designed to address both. Its multidisciplinary approach allows the consulting team to be built around the institution’s priorities rather than expecting a single consultant to provide every type of expertise.
What should institutions look for in a consulting partner?
The engagement model matters, but so does what happens inside it.
Health professions programs operate at the intersection of academic quality, professional accreditation, faculty capacity, clinical education, student outcomes, institutional economics, and increasingly complex technology and delivery decisions.
Effective consulting should therefore do more than deliver recommendations.
It should help leadership make better decisions, bring the appropriate expertise to each stage of the work, and create a practical path from strategy into implementation. The institution should retain academic authority and ownership throughout the process—a principle embedded in both Strelis’ Program Development and Growth & Modernization approach.
The question isn’t simply whether to use a consultant.
It is what kind of relationship will help your institution accomplish the work ahead?
One Practice, Built Around Your Priorities
Strelis Consulting & Advisory Services supports health professions programs across Accreditation & Reaccreditation, Program Development & Excellence, and Growth & Modernization.
Whether the need calls for a focused project, a structured service, or a sustained Program Excellence Partnership, the objective remains the same: bring the right expertise and capacity to the work while your institution retains control.
Not sure which model fits your priorities?
