A new term for a well-known phenomenon is gaining traction and highlighting the need for change among hospital administration: Administrative harm.
The term is defined as the adverse consequences of administrative decisions within healthcare, MedPage Today reported July 10. First introduced in a 2022 article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Walter O'Donnell, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, the phenomenon itself has been known for about two decades.
A June 24 study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, conducted surveys among 41 participants from 32 organizations. Participants included clinicians, administrators, researchers, and members of a patient and family advisory council.
It found that 6% of participants said they were familiar with the term "administrative harm" to a great extent, but 81% said they had participated in a decision that led to administrative harm to some degree.
All participants said better collaboration between administrators and clinicians is needed.
Unlike physicians, administrators are rarely evaluated on the outcomes of their decisions.
"In an era when so many decisions are being made far away from patients, it's at the least ironic, but certainly unreasonable, that administrative decisions don't receive the same sort of scrutiny," Dr. O'Donnell told MedPage Today.