Practices

Physician Leadership Resources

Strong Performance

Physician Collaboration

Physician Alignment

Practical insights to enhance your hospital system's performance in 2010.

1.   Factors that Frustrate Physician Leader Effectiveness

Insights from over 420 senior executives and physician leaders define a number of factors that are known to frustrate physician leaders from successfully leveraging their time and talent to move forward the organization's performance agenda via enhanced physician alignment.  The top five key factors that CEOs and boards must avoid are (as cited by surveyed CEOs):

  1. Resistance from other physicians about being led/managed by a physician
  2. No clear performance goals/measures
  3. Lack of time and time management skills
  4. Weak project management skills
  5. Poor group/interpersonal management skills

For the full report, download here.

2.   Factors that Enhance Physician Leader Effectiveness

To improve your ROI on investments into physician leader effectiveness, CEOs indicate the top five factors to implement are:

  1. Clear job descriptions outlining duties and expected results
  2. Formal orientation to job duties
  3. Mentoring support
  4. Administrative partner
  5. Easy access to staff support

For the full report, download here.

3.   Physician Leadership Style

Physician leaders, like all health care system leaders, are effective when they "get important work done with and through others."  Leveraging the time and talent of physician leaders requires boards and executive teams to invest in the assessment and development of their physician leaders' capabilities to work in teams and to manage projects.  Leadership style and interpersonal relations help physician leaders enhance their effectiveness.

To learn more about our study to support the versatility of physician leaders, download this white paper. 

4.   Physician Leadership Competencies

High performance physician leaders balance their clinical skills with mastery of leadership competencies such as those defined in the research of The National Center for Healthcare Leadership (NCHL).  For a description of their 26 key competencies, click here.

5.   Physician Leader Academies

Physician alignment for overall organizational success will not just happen. Physician leaders are needed, and must be developed via learning opportunities that are customized to the unique needs of each physician and organization. Many organizations have begun to intentionally invest in their physician leadership development within internal “Physician Leadership Academies”. These ten organizations have gained good value from their physician leadership academies:

  • Advocate Healthcare
  • Alegent Health
  • Baylor Healthcare System
  • Carillion Health System
  • Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
  • Heartland Health
  • Lehigh Valley Health Network
  • Mayo Foundation
  • Sanford Health System
  • Virginia Mason Medical Center

To review the characteristics of these academies, please review our descriptive study of the 10 Physician Leadership Academies in this Programs of Promise white paper. Download here

6.   Medical Director Job Descriptions

Health care systems are rapidly expanding the number and quality of "Medical Directors."  These physician leaders have defined jobs that can range from leadership roles for quality, to med-informatics, to rural outreach, to service line managers.  As regulatory oversights and audits increase the need for performance planning and time accountability, physician leaders need enhanced position descriptions and clear performance expectations.  For more information contact us.

7.   Medical Director Compensation

Physician leaders working for tax-exempt hospitals and health care organizations are subject to the same "rebuttable presumption of reasonableness" standards as other key leaders.  Significant experience in the design and management of reasonable physician leader pay arrangements are available in our Physician Services Practice. 

8.   Medical Director Performance Appraisal

Web-based tools are now available to support physician leader performance planning and appraisal.  For a sample demo of these customizable tools click here.

9.   Physician Leader Culture Audit

Our firm has been conducting physician and medical staff surveys on satisfaction and cultural alignment for over a decade.  For more information click here.

10. Medical Staff Development Plans

A comprehensive medical staff development plan should establish a framework for meeting a community's healthcare needs. It should also help hospital staff determine the types of physicians the community requires, the types of physicians a hospital can support and the right mix of physicians to enable a hospital to realize its full potential.

A medical staff development plan also should provide legal support and documentation for hospital activities that might come under the scrutiny of the Office of the Inspector General or the Internal Revenue Service, such as physician recruitment or practice acquisition. Evidence that hospital staff have considered community needs in their planning may deflect governmental criticism or penalties.

Ultimately, a medical staff development plan should define a realistic approach to physician recruitment and retention that is achievable in terms of marketplace realities and sensitive to the needs and concerns of hospital staff, medical staff and the community.

Contact us to discuss sample development plans.

11. Clinical Governance

Achieving world class clinical quality and patient safety is essential for your service line growth and negotiation of payer terms.  The process improvements needed by your physician, nursing and allied health teams will benefit by adapting new "clinical governance" protocols and concepts from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (“IHI”) and England.

The guidelines from IHI may be found on their website:  http://www.ihi.org/ihi

The guidance from Scotland may be found at:  http://www.clinicalgovernance.scot.nhs.uk/