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Announcing the 2009 Top Leadership Teams in Healthcare

 |  By HealthLeaders Media Staff  
   August 26, 2009

An inner-city health system that has become a model for safety-net hospitals, and a small, rural hospital that has set its own high bar for quality are among the winners in the 6th annual HealthLeaders Media Top Leadership Teams in Healthcare program, sponsored by Cejka Search, GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, and Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis.

Winners in the 2009 Top Leadership Teams in Healthcare program include Denver Health & Hospital for Large Hospitals and Health Systems; Grays Harbor Community Hospital in Aberdeen, WA, for Community and Mid-Size Hospitals; Cary Medical Center in Caribou, ME, for Small Hospitals; NorthShore University Health System Medical Group in Evanston, IL, for Medical Groups; and Independent Health in Williamsville, NY, for Health Plans.

The HealthLeaders Media Top Leadership Teams in Healthcare 2009 program is designed to celebrate the outstanding teamwork that occurs in healthcare organizations each day, to share what makes top leadership teams successful, and to encourage other healthcare leaders to learn more from the best practices of top leadership teams. Winners are judged on the team's overall leadership culture, its ability to overcome challenges, and its ability to demonstrate successes that result from outstanding leadership teamwork. Only one winner per category receives this national honor each year.

HealthLeaders Media Editor-in-Chief Jim Molpus says the 2009 Top Leadership Teams winners share a common thread in that systemic barriers to healthcare performance have not stopped them. "We hear so much defeatism coming out of the healthcare debate today," Molpus says. "Then you look at the challenges facing a public, safety-net hospital system like Denver Health. Others in very similar situations have closed, but Denver Health has set the bar higher than merely surviving. It has found a way to grow and to carry out the highest purposes of its mission to serve the citizens of Denver."

"The stable, committed, and innovative leadership team at Denver Health is one of the primary factors in our success as an integrated safety net healthcare delivery system," says Patricia A. Gabow, M.D., CEO of Denver Health.

"Recognition of this outstanding team by HealthLeaders Media confirms my conviction that effective leadership in today's complex healthcare environment is not the work of one or even several people; it is the work of a well-oiled team."

Other winning work from this year’s honorees includes:

  • In five years, the leadership team at Grays Harbor Community Hospital turned around the struggling community hospital, improving employee, patient, and physician satisfaction while also increasing market share.
  • Despite being a 65-bed hospital in rural Maine, Cary Medical Center is at the forefront of using the latest healthcare information technology to improve care.
  • Independent Health has developed a leadership culture that promotes teamwork and a passion for serving the community, says Top Leadership Teams Judge Jeffrey A. Kramer, Ph.D., Director of Programs in Healthcare Management & Insurance Studies at the University of Connecticut School of Business. "They remain true to their roots in a highly competitive market, and represent many of the positive aspects of health plans that are often overlooked."
  • A culture built around peer teamwork and data-driven decision making has allowed NorthShore University HealthSystem Medical Group to more than triple its number of physicians in the past decade.

The 2009 winning teams share some of the common teamwork qualities that past winners have demonstrated, including a commitment to community improvement, a culture of transparency and communication, relentlessness on performance, and a focus on measurement of organizational goals. Full profiles of the winners and their teamwork lessons will be featured in the December issue of HealthLeaders magazine.

The 2009 honorees of the Top Leadership Teams in Healthcare will be featured speakers at the annual HealthLeaders 09: Hospital of the Future Now conference, to be held Oct. 15-16 at The Palmer House in Chicago. Leaders from healthcare organizations such as Scripps Health, Mayo Clinic, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Ascension Health, Trinity Health, Kaiser Permanente, UPMC and others will share leadership lessons and strategies to create a vision for the next generation of hospitals.

About HealthLeaders Media
HealthLeaders Media is the premier publisher of information resources for senior-level healthcare executives, reaching more than 100,000 healthcare decision-makers nationwide every month. In addition to its flagship monthly journal, HealthLeaders magazine, HealthLeaders Media distributes relevant industry information, practical advice, case-study solutions, and innovative strategies through newsletters, e-mail publications, live events and state-specific healthcare business news services. For more information, visit online at www.healthleadersmedia.com.

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