In health care, there is nothing more complex than the simple. In a recent New England Journal of Medicine article, What is Value in Health Care?, Michael Porter, a Harvard trained Ph.D. in business economics, makes a compelling case for defining, measuring and rewarding value in health care. By shifting our focus on value, simply defined as quality divided by cost, […]
We physicians are understandably worried that the push to save money in health care will compromise the care of our patients. We have witnessed botched attempts to balance the health care budget on the backs of providers and patients: arbitrary reductions in length of stays, denial of payments for “unnecessary” procedures, capitation, etc. Physician leaders have an opportunity today to […]
Let’s Do Better Than Justice Stewart In the most frequently quoted Supreme Court opinion on obscenity, Justice Potter Stewart remarked, “I shall not today attempt to define the kinds of material I understand embraced within that shorthand description (pornography); and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so, but I know it when I see it… Justice Stewart was tasked […]
Effective parenting, like effective leadership, is a demanding, often emotionally draining task. I have attended leadership courses and conferences, read many books on leadership and many biographies of people I admire as great leaders: George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King. I have been privileged to hold leadership positions […]
Breaking the paradigm of quantity: A challenge for physician leadership. One of my favorite Jackie Mason jokes goes something like this. A potential customer enters a store whose sign in the front window proclaims: “WE SELL NOT JUST BELOW RETAIL. WE SELL BELOW COST!”. He skeptically approaches the store’s proprietor and asks, “How can you manage to make a living selling […]
It should be obvious to all that the politicians and pundits driving the healthcare debate in this country have a surplus of sound bites and a deficit of solutions. Many cannot even accurately define the fundamental problem: COST. The United States cannot sustain double-digit healthcare inflation, and an 18% of GNP healthcare system. Our companies cannot compete in the global […]
Waiting for Dr. Martin Luther King Healthcare integration requires today what racial integration required on the 60′s: strong leadership In one of our physician leadership training modules, we show the video of the 1963 civil rights march on the nation’s Capitol with the keynote speech of Dr. Martin Luther King. It is easily accessible on YouTube (search for “MLK’s I […]
Dealing with a disabling addiction: A challenge for physician leaders What would you think if I sang out of tune, Would you stand up and walk out on me? Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song And I’ll try not to sing out of key. Somewhere in the near future we look through a one way mirror […]