Engage Physicians to Lead in Tackling
Hospitals’ Challenges

As hospitals continue to sharpen their focus on care quality and outcomes, they need physicians to lead endeavors to increase efficiency, improve clinical quality and reduce cost. A recent study found that hospitals with the greatest clinician participation in management scored about 50 percent higher on important drivers of performance.¹ Many physicians, however, are typically not educated formally on collaborative leadership.

Despite the general consensus that improving health care delivery while managing cost requires more and better physician leaders, some health care executives hesitate to embark on a physician leadership program. And many physicians remain skeptical that such a program could be worth their time.

Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI), however, believes that hospitalists are essential to population health management and that physician leaders must be on board with shared clinical protocols. “In order to get meaningful change, you have to have physician leaders at the table,” says Dr. Manoj Pawar, VP of clinical operations at CHI. For an insightful interview with Dr. Pawar about CHI’s efforts to adopt an agile and lasting solution that would achieve hospital medicine transformation, watch this video.

Amanda Task, national vice president, hospital medicine service line, CHI, concurs with Dr. Pawar: “Having a high level of cooperation and collaboration among physician leaders is the only way to achieve results.” And CHI has achieved excellent results through its partnership with The Physician Leadership Institute™ (PLI).

Physician Leadership Training and Development Services from PLI have earned the exclusive endorsement of the American Hospital Association (AHA). PLI physician leadership programs range from assessment and coaching sessions to on-site Physician Leadership Academies and Fellowships designed to implement a lasting culture of leadership and protect physician productivity. A wide array of experts from health care, academia, business and the military guide physicians in leadership development, provide one-on-one coaching, and advise teams of clinicians who apply their learning to real-life projects based on organizational objectives.

Typical outcomes for participating physicians include:

• 133 percent improvement in the ability to lead others
• 200 percent improvement in the ability to work in teams and with administrators
• 350 percent in the ability to think strategically
• 80 percent improvement in loyalty to the organization

A number of factors led the AHA to award its endorsement to PLI’s Physician Leadership Training and Development Services. These include:

• Exclusive focus on physician leadership development, which ensures PLI’s deep knowledge of hospital and physician challenges and trends
• Unique evidence-based, on-site customized approach to physician development
• Effective results, which include physicians’ personal and professional growth, improved physician engagement and performance, and better long-term succession planning for hospitals

¹ Castro, J., Dorgan, S., Richardson, B., 2008, McKinsley Quarterly