Mission Possible

This article appears in the January 2012 issue of HealthLeaders magazine.

Mission statements are often mocked for being uselessly generic. Random mission statement generators (really) can spit out any combination of "trust" and "teamwork" and "patient needs." Yet many real mission statements adopted by hospitals and healthcare systems are seriously specific, with careful and clear thought given to who should be served, how they should be served, and how management and the medical staff should work together toward those ends.

At the center of most healthcare mission statements is, naturally, the patient. This is not lip service, nor is patient care the province only of nurses. As one hospital executive observes in this issue's Council Connection, our monthly commentary from members of the HealthLeaders Media Council, "Most people don't stay in healthcare unless you have a personal mission to serve others, because it is too hard."

Nor can a hospital mission statement exist in a bubble absent financial reality. As a hospital CEO relates in Council Connection, "No margin, no mission." One might say that this magazine issue, and all other publications and products of HealthLeaders Media, are devoted to helping healthcare organizations find their balance of mission and margin.

The cover story in this issue recounts the move toward outpatient centers for services such as ambulatory surgery and imaging. Not only do such centers improve the margins of the healthcare systems that own them, but they may help answer the question posed in our Leadership section: With an influx of newly insured patients to the healthcare system by 2014, how many will come?

This magazine issue also highlights some of the columnists who write for our weekly e-newsletters and website, HealthLeadersMedia.com, which is headed by Senior Online Editor Cora Nucci. Our columnists tackle the important issues facing CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, and other executives, such as the impact of ICD-10 on quality and the bottom line. On our website, you can sign up to receive daily and weekly e-newsletters at no charge. In addition to insightful columns, each newsletter contains the latest relevant articles from our staff and other publications.

What does your organization's mission statement promise? Does it square with your true mission? The HealthLeaders Media suite of publications and products will help you find your way.

This article appears in the January 2012 issue of HealthLeaders magazine.