Hospital-physician relationships were a prevalent topic at Huron Healthcare's most recent CEO forum, and healthcare CEOs from across the country offered the following thoughts on their strategies to form ties with physicians.
"I feel strongly that one of our biggest challenges is focus," said William Atkinson, PhD, president and CEO of WakeMed Health and Hospitals in Raleigh, N.C. "I don't have the time, energy or dollars to play nice with [physicians] who are not stakeholders. However, I've been really struck by the speed with which the [physicians] we've employed — without any real proof that we can help them in their lives — come to trust us. It didn't take much."
"We can't assume that financial alignment with physicians is a cure-all by itself," said Ray Thompson, executive vice president and COO of Trinity Mother Frances Health System in Tyler, Texas. "It just sets the ground rules for discussion. A seamless, data-driven delivery system is the way we will create long-term alignment and value."
"One of the concerns we should have if we don't own the [physicians] is an interloper coming in and buying them up. That just happened in California — 2,300 physicians were purchased in a single transaction," said Dan Wolterman, president and CEO of Memorial Hermann Healthcare System in Houston.
Many CEOs at the forum also said they use the Mayo dyad model, in which practicing and administrative physicians are paired to make care delivery decisions. Bryan Mills, president and CEO of Community Health Network in Indianapolis, has this model in place at his system.
"We use the Mayo dyad model to create what I call 'healthy friction,'" Mr. Mills said in the report. "We have to emphasize in that pairing, it's not that one physician is solely looking at things operationally, and one looking at things solely clinically. They have to work together."
Read the 2011 Huron Healthcare CEO Forum Report in full.
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"I feel strongly that one of our biggest challenges is focus," said William Atkinson, PhD, president and CEO of WakeMed Health and Hospitals in Raleigh, N.C. "I don't have the time, energy or dollars to play nice with [physicians] who are not stakeholders. However, I've been really struck by the speed with which the [physicians] we've employed — without any real proof that we can help them in their lives — come to trust us. It didn't take much."
"We can't assume that financial alignment with physicians is a cure-all by itself," said Ray Thompson, executive vice president and COO of Trinity Mother Frances Health System in Tyler, Texas. "It just sets the ground rules for discussion. A seamless, data-driven delivery system is the way we will create long-term alignment and value."
"One of the concerns we should have if we don't own the [physicians] is an interloper coming in and buying them up. That just happened in California — 2,300 physicians were purchased in a single transaction," said Dan Wolterman, president and CEO of Memorial Hermann Healthcare System in Houston.
Many CEOs at the forum also said they use the Mayo dyad model, in which practicing and administrative physicians are paired to make care delivery decisions. Bryan Mills, president and CEO of Community Health Network in Indianapolis, has this model in place at his system.
"We use the Mayo dyad model to create what I call 'healthy friction,'" Mr. Mills said in the report. "We have to emphasize in that pairing, it's not that one physician is solely looking at things operationally, and one looking at things solely clinically. They have to work together."
Read the 2011 Huron Healthcare CEO Forum Report in full.
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