Top seven healthcare leadership problems

Are you making any of these mistakes? Here are the biggest pitfalls healthcare industry leaders say you should avoid.

“One top leadership problem is lack of population health management experience for business and clinical people in healthcare companies.”

“Healthcare has historically been a very conservative industry and generally resistant to change.  Ideally, I think we need more risk-takers in this era of reform and leaders who are prepared to truly lead (vs. follow) should be rewarded for their efforts.”

“Though this area has improved, there’s still a far from successful effort on behalf of leaders throughout the industry to break down walls and silos within which our healthcare system operates, and deliver a much more connected, well-coordinated model of care that will inevitably drive down costs yet preserve access and quality of care.”

“I believe the biggest problem confronting healthcare leaders is their inability to identify the root causes of issues and then find remediation steps.  For example, the current dialogue in Washington, D.C., centers on health plan premiums and affordability-when in my opinion, the real root causes of our issues are the underlying cost of care and their rate of growth plus the relatively lower effectiveness of care relative to other developed countries.”

“One major problem is complacency in finding and implementing innovative approaches to how we manage and deliver healthcare. If you look at the impact of something like iTunes on the music industry, smartphones on the use of apps and taking pictures and videos, Amazon on selling consumer goods, and the airline industry’s approach to safety, I think that healthcare leadership needs to step up on innovation. It still takes nearly two decades to implement advances in cancer treatment, hospital and doctor errors are top causes of death in the U.S., infant mortality rivals some third world countries, EHR integration is neither patient nor member-centric, and provider billing is very consumer unfriendly, just to name a few. The healthcare industry needs its leadership to take control of some of these issues and help deliver innovations that can transform care.”

“I think the biggest challenge with healthcare leadership is transforming the focus from traditional hospital-centric care models to transparent consumer-centric care models that put patients and their experiences at the center. This includes the transformation to community-based models of medicine that provide much more transparency to all parties on how care is delivered and the costs of that care.”

“Loyalty and tenure are important. It takes time to understand an organization, its various layers of leadership and administration, and the personalities involved. Having an in-depth understanding of these is required to organize highly effective teams and to be truly effective in one’s role. However, loyalty and tenure are not a complete substitute for competence and the ability to creatively problem solve, effectively implement programs, and drive change. Rewarding loyalty and tenure alone with advancement in the organization all too often leads to the reality of ‘The Peter Principle,’ where managers have risen to the level of their incompetence.”