How Do I Begin to Align Hospital and Physician Leadership to Get the Results I Want?

Physician employment models, joint-ventures and other co-management models are just the beginning of a journey whose ultimate destination is improved quality and outcomes at reduced costs. And this journey will not take a straight line — it will come with fits and starts as we all learn how to collaborate, how to share power, while, at the same time, we adjust to a still-evolving reform landscape.

So while the future is not entirely knowable, what we have learned in our work to date is that having an agile physician/hospital leadership organization that displays a high-degree of cooperation is critical to getting the results we want and need. The ability to have a resilient “leadership web” that can quickly work through the change-driven organizational breakdowns is imperative.

We’re pleased to offer you the following Executive Brief for C-Teams that will help you and your leadership team on their journey to align physician and hospital leadership in a way that can dramatically increase the chances of getting the results you want. 

Executive Brief for C-Teams–Aligning Hospital and Physician Leadership

1. Educate. To prevent the problems and second-guessing caused by a lack of common ground for decision makers, ensure that your senior leadership team, your Board and your current physician leaders understand the emerging healthcare environment, the opportunities and threats and the nature of organizations that will be successful.  This is “educating”, not just “communicating.”
2. Get Real. Dispel any thoughts people might have of (a) holding their breath until the environment gets less challenging; (b) waiting until there is more clarity; (c) finding a “magic bullet” solution that can be easily and quickly implemented or any other wishful thinking; or (d) delegating physician leadership development to anyone outside of your senior leadership team – at least in the initial stages.
3. Create a Widely Owned Vision and Strategy. Create a vision of the desired physician leadership across the organization and the strategy required to achieve it.  AND ensure that the physician leadership vision and strategy is understood and owned by the Board, the C-Suite, and current physician leaders.
4. Deploy the Best-and-the-Brightest. Create a core team of physician and administrative leaders that has the ability to refine and execute the physician leadership strategy.  This must be, and be perceived to be, an “A” team.  This is a team that is clearly up to the challenge.  Otherwise leadership credibility is compromised right at the beginning and it will be very hard to recover.  It is a symbol of leadership commitment that no one will miss.
5. Expand the Circle. Rapidly engage the system’s physicians (employed or not) in:
   • Gaining a working knowledge of the emerging healthcare environment and its implications for systems and physicians
   • Appreciating the vision and physician leadership strategy and enhancing it
   • Identifying physicians that have an interest in playing leadership roles (large or small and formal or informal)
   • Getting a rough picture of the qualities they think a physician leader should have
6. Build Capability and Capacity. Focus on rapidly developing three capabilities in concert : leadership competencies, relationships and the leadership architecture that provide the setting within which they can be effectively acted out.
   • Architecture (match the work). This involves the design of the formal and informal physician leadership roles that match the critical work that needs to be done and the flexible structure and processes that can link those roles.
   • Relationships (connect the people). As with roles, these relationships can be formal or informal. They may also be one-to-one partnerships or relationships among team members – or between teams or organizations.  They may be long term relationships or shorter relationships based on projects.
   • Competencies (build the capability).  There is an impressive array of leadership competencies and their relevance will vary from organization to organization and from leadership role to leadership role.  The key is to understand the competencies required in any particular scenario and the readiness of the physician leader and then customize an approach to developing those competencies for that person.  Every organization will see a small group of core competencies to be developed across the board, but the leverage comes in making the investment to customize.

Meet the expert : Gordon Barnhart — Senior Partner, Physician Leadership

Click Here to Request Information about our  C-team Executive Briefing on Aligning Hospitals/Physicians for Increased Performance .

Download our  White Papers:

• Physician Integration and Leadership Performance: A White Paper for Health System Boards and Executives
• Physician Whiplash: Going from Great Medicine to Great Leadership

Click Here to get a free copy of Dr. O’Brien’s New Book Quicksilver.