The popularity of health savings accounts for the poor will be put to the test in Indiana under a program. Through the plan, someone making $20,000 a year could get health coverage for about $19 a week.
Even the most conservative mainstream research hospitals are trying alternative treatment methods such as acupuncture, hypnosis, meditation, guided imagery and massage.
Several health-insurance companies have agreed to improve their existing or planned ratings of physicians. The insurers have agreed to rate quality as well as cost and to use independently accepted criteria, instead of just claims data to rate physicians.
Officials at St. Vincent's Hospital, Manhattan hope to replace the aging complex with a streamlined, more patient-friendly building, but receiving city approval is far from certain. The hospital is in the Greenwich Village Historic District, and the proposal calls for the largest demolition and redevelopment in the Village in half a century.
The top boosters for the merger of the state's two hospital groups, Lifespan and Care New England, have promised many things, including better recruitment of doctors and researchers and improved care--but not lower patient costs.
Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Bower is a leadership expert and author of The CEO Within: Why Inside Outsiders Are the Key to Succession Planning. In this interview, Professor Bower discusses succession planning and why growing leaders from within makes for smarter business. He was interviewed by Molly Rowe, Senior Editor, Leadership, for HealthLeaders Media.
A recent Wall Street Journal article describes several studies linking the success of companies to the personal lives of their CEOs. Not that we didn't already know CEOs matter, but this study shows a leader's influence goes well beyond his or her presence in the corner office.
A Denmark study found a link between reduced profitability and CEO-family deaths; another study showed a dip in stock performance after CEOs purchased exceptionally large homes. Although the studies focused on the performance of large public companies outside of healthcare, healthcare leaders weren't immune to researchers' scrutiny.
Tenet Healthcare CEO Trevor Fetter reportedly purchased a 10,000-square-foot mansion in 2005. Since then, Tenet's stocks are off more than 60 percent, according to one study (Tenet's spokesperson had no comment for the Journal). Researchers don't know why a company's profitability drops after the CEO buys a big home, but some theorize that these leaders spend more time writing checks than scrutinizing company financials.
Regardless of the explanations, this type of research highlights a healthcare leadership hot button: succession planning.
If executives' personal lives really affect the bottom line as much as these studies say they do, organizations should plan accordingly. If, for example, there's a death in the CFO's family, does she have adequate time away from the office -- and Blackberry-- to cope? More importantly (from a business standpoint), have you trained a capable #2 to make decisions in her absence?
Earlier this month, I spoke with Harvard Business School Professor and leadership expert Joseph Bower for an upcoming story in HealthLeaders magazine. Bower's looked at more than 1,800 successions in companies across all industries. By and large, Bower says, most companies don't undertake appropriate succession planning. This holds true in healthcare where, according to the Association for Healthcare Executives, only about 30 percent of hospital CEOs say their facilities practice routine succession planning.
"Succession planning" means more than selecting a new leader six months before a retiring CEO leaves the building. It's a state of mind, says Bower. "Good succession planning means you organize the place so that, over time, the jobs of department heads include not just running the department well but also running the hospital. You have a cohort of doctors that have a broad view of the hospital and how to run it. You begin to have people that you can look to to succeed," Bower advises. You also have people that can step in when personal lives get in the way.
You may have difficulty imagining your organization without you or your leadership team, but you'd be wise to. This type of growth planning makes your staff stronger in their jobs today, and it prepares your organization for the unpredictability of tomorrow.
Molly Rowe is leadership editor with HealthLeaders magazine. She can be reached at mrowe@healthleadersmedia.com.
It can be one of the defining questions of an executive's career: When do you stand up and take the bullet for a deal or strategy gone wrong and when do you duck your head and let others take the fall?
The Grafton (WI) Plan Commission has endorsed Aurora Health Care's plans to construct a new hospital and medical building. Aurora Health Care representatives said they hope to break ground on the project by summer 2008.
Citing ethical concerns, a number of religious leaders are asking officials at Appalachian Regional Healthcare and striking nurses at the system's nine hospitals to resolve their contract dispute. About 650 nurses walked off the job Oct. 1.
