New Models of Care Demand Integrated Leadership, Trust

Integrated leadership is key for promoting the kind of environment necessary for the success of new models of care, according to participants in a special panel discussion at the American Medical Association (AMA) annual meeting in Chicago, IL (June 11-15, 2016) and reported on by AMA Wire.

The days of executives and clinicians working in separate spheres are over. Effective leadership requires input—and a shared vision—from both domains.

“There has to be a place where … administrators, physicians, and other clinicians can sit down and make decisions about the management of the organization and how it can move forward,” remarked John Combes, MD, chief medical officer at the American Hospital Association, according to the AMA Wire report. “Physicians must be in the leadership of all levels of the organization. There has to be a team approach of clinicians and managers and others working together.”

Dr Combes told attendees he believes many executives and clinicians share a similar core vision for their organizations. What they too often lack, however, is trust.

“It has to be a collaborative, participatory partnership built on—and this is the key word—trust,” he said.

Trust is one of the 6 principles of success outlined in the “Principles of Integrated Leadership for Hospitals and Health Systems” issued by the AMA and the American Hospital Association a year ago. For trust to flourish, physician and executive leaders will need to share details of clinical and business matters across the organization and work to include each other in decisions, according to the panel. 

Panel participant J James Rohack, MD, former AMA president who practices as a cardiologist in Texas, said physician leaders are commonly excluded from information technology (IT) decisions. As a result, bedside care suffers.

To build trust and integrated leadership, continued training for both administrators and physicians may help boost their leadership skills as well as instill in them an appreciation for the roles of various types of leaders in the health care organization, panel members mused. American Organization of Nurse Executives CEO Pam Thompson plugged the need to include such interprofessional education in schools now so future clinicians will understand one another better when they enter practice.

For new models of care to work, change is crucial, Dr Combes said. “If you have a new model of care with the old leadership,” he said, “it’s not going to work.”—Jolynn Tumolo