http://coolfidence.com/opportunity-is-nowhere-icebreaker-3006#1
Tag Archives: Leadership
Community hospitals: What’s your long-term game plan?
The volume of hospital M&A deals has doubled over the past six years, with fewer and fewer community hospitals still going it alone. For the remaining holdouts, they are at an important juncture: Should they continue fighting for independence or join a larger system?
This heavily-debated question is at the core of many board meetings. While the answer is unique to each institution, in either scenario, the community hospital that proactively controls its own destiny — instead of losing that control to market forces — can come out ahead.
Whether the future holds independence or acquisition, here is what leadership needs to know to position their hospitals for future growth.
What does it take to stay independent?
For efficient facilities with ample cash on hand, there’s an understandable allure to remaining independent. After all, the board of directors at a community hospital is typically made up of individuals from the local area who can continue to focus exclusively on addressing the needs of the local community rather than answer to a distant corporate team.
But a lean and high-volume operation today just isn’t a strong enough indicator to choose independence for the long term. Leadership must consider broader questions that take into account a host of internal and external factors:
‘Somewhere in between’: Finding the balance between quality and the bottom line
As healthcare continues its shift from fee-for-service to value-based care, hospitals and health systems are working steadily to try and improve quality while reducing costs. However, striking a balance between the two can be challenging.
At the Becker’s Hospital Review 5th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable on Nov. 8 in Chicago, healthcare experts discussed how their entities balance rewarding physicians for quality and clinical activity in what is still primarily a fee-for-service environment.
“We’re not totally in a fee-for-service environment. We’re not totally in a value-based care environment. We’re kind of somewhere in between,” said Patrice M. Weiss, MD, executive vice president and CMO of Roanoke, Va.-headquartered Carilion Clinic. “In the past, the two were felt to be mutually exclusive, but recent models of care have demonstrated that quality of care can be delivered in a low-cost model.”
While the shift from fee-for-service to value-based care is slightly slower in coming to her organization’s region, they are preparing, according to Dr. Weiss.
Carilion is a nonprofit organization with a network of hospitals, primary and specialty physician practices and other complementary services. The health system offers physicians a base salary, as well as a Tier 1 bonus and a Tier 2 bonus. The Tier 1 bonus is based on scorecard measures, which include quality metrics, patient experience metrics and operating margin.
“We have found we’ve been able to reduce the cost by using evidence-based medicine, standardization of care and appropriateness of testing and imaging,” Dr. Weiss said. “This reduced utilization has not reduced the quality of care or outcomes but has reduced the cost of care, thereby positively affecting our operating margin. So improving quality care and reducing the cost of care are not mutually exclusive.”
Physician-led, cost-reducing initiatives and physician engagement have been primary drivers in achieving reduced costs and improved quality, according to Dr. Weiss. For instance, Carilion has a significant physician-led initiative on early elective inductions or deliveries. This initiative, which was based on national guidelines, resulted in less utilization of obstetrical resources at an earlier gestational age.
How Do You Recognize a Trustworthy Leader?
I’m hearing people talking about trustworthy leadership everywhere I go. We all crave it. We seek it out because trustworthy leadership allows us to be at our best so that we can make a meaningful contribution.
To recognize a trustworthy leader, look for all of these tell-tale signs:
- Values Centered – character, integrity and moral awareness are top priorities
- Full Congruence – behaves the same way in every context, and shows congruence between thoughts, words and deeds
- Genuinely Cares – treats people well – everybody, not just the inner circle
- Shows Respect – demonstrates respect for people and differences
- Other Focused – realizes that leadership is about bringing out the best in others – and it shows in every interaction and conversation
The best leaders strive to live out all five of these characteristics every day. They center themselves in positive ethical values like respect, care and trustworthiness.
What should you do if you can’t find a trustworthy leader? Keep looking. They’re out there.
The ”New Normal” For The C-Suite – Learning Agile Leaders
What are CEOs looking for in the next generation of C-Suite leaders? Let’s look at three real-world examples:
1. Growth Leaders – The CEO of a multi-billion dollar industrial products company boldly sets an ambitious growth goal of growing revenue by 40% over a three-year period. He has a Board-approved strategy, a solid operating plan with targets, and a newly developed business unit organization structure to implement it.
But he also knows that this is the easy part. What’s the hard part? It’s building a cadre of leaders who can grow the company at a rapid clip. No one has asked them to do anything like this before. They have good managers, but do they have growth leaders?
2. Champions of the Greater Good – The CEO of a large, global educational services company is reorganizing to increase its impact in the company’s areas of focus. The new organizational model will enable linkages across the company, connecting people from various disciplines together to innovate and drive marketplace success.
The CEO needs to staff several newly defined senior executive roles with leaders who will drive collaboration across former fiefdoms and make decisions that put the company, not their unit, first. Which leaders will have not only domain expertise but also the ability to wear an “Enterprise Hat”?
3. Transformational Leaders – A well-respected publishing company is transforming its brand. It must reach new audiences with ever more impactful content and diversify its traditional sources of revenue. The CEO came on board with a change imperative and is heading into the third year of a multi-year transformation process.
After collaboratively developing a strategy with her Board and engaging all employees in the change process, the time is now to see the changes implemented flawlessly. She needs her leadership team to collaborate across silos, make difficult strategic and operational decisions and lead with a more integrated “One Company” mindset. Who will help her lead this transformation?
The 1 thing about healthcare that needs to change: 4 executives weigh in
From the shift to value-based care to increased price transparency, the healthcare industry is in the midst of significant changes that are aimed at efficiently improving care. However, for that goal to be achieved, problems in the industry such as disparity in access to care and confusing billing systems still need to be addressed, according to healthcare executives.
In a panel discussion on Nov. 9 at the Becker’s 5th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable in Chicago moderated by Rhoda Weiss, PhD, nationally recognized consultant, speaker, and author, four great minds in healthcare discussed the changes they would like to see in the industry, what gives them pride in their organizations and the issues that keep them awake at night.
Future hospital leaders: Prepare millennials to take the reins
Trustee takeaways
“The good news in terms of identifying successful millennial leaders is that they are not significantly different from successful leaders in other generations,” says Cindy Roark, M.D., president and CEO of Synergy Population Health. Members of this group, though, do come with some of their own quirks. They often look to others — and their own leaders — to:
- Communicate the “why” for any decision or project.
- Make an attempt to make everyone feel part of the process.
- Facilitate collaboration on projects that would have been autonomous in the past.
- Allow for and be a part of team building and camaraderie.
- Allow for flexibility to address work-life balance.
- Provide continual feedback.
- Provide praise.
- Develop and support a social responsibility strategy in the organization.
Cartoon – My Platform . . .
Cartoon – Damning Report about Lack of Leadersip
Cartoon – The Company Lacks Leadership
HENRY KOTULA 