Informal doc leaders: A help or hindrance?

by Jonathan H. Burroughs
Informal physician and medical staff leaders represent the true source of power and autonomy on the organized medical staff.
These individuals have a large measure of political savvy, are well connected, understand the personalities and deeper motivations of key leaders, and masterfully work the system year in and year out. These individuals can be your best friend or your worst enemy but must be acknowledged, respected, and hopefully utilized to a positive end.
The following is a fictionalized account of a true story and serves as a cautionary tale for any CEO, chief medical officer (CMO), vice president for medical staff affairs (VPMA) or medical staff officer.

Dr. Earnest is a new CMO in a large stand-alone community hospital system and has been charged by the CEO to build a service line strategy by creating co-management agreements between independent physicians and management. The organization has a fiercely independent group of community-based physicians who have little interest in collaborating with the hospital due to a past history of mistrust, broken communication and broken promises.
Being the eternal optimist and wanting to make a good impression for his CEO, Dr. Earnest visits all of the independent physicians, gets their enthusiastic buy-in for the service line strategy and asks the chief of staff to present it as a medical staff initiative at the next medical staff meeting. The initiative is beaten unanimously and the new CMO (...

Source: hospital impact - August 8, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs