Poll: Nearly half of organizations have physician leadership development training programs
Nearly half of respondents to a recent survey said their organizations had a physician leadership development training program, while 95 percent said leadership competencies were important in the medical profession.
The American Association for Physician Leadership and Navigant Center for Healthcare Research and Policy Analysis conducted the study during the spring of 2015 and released the results in September. The respondents included 2,398 members of the association.
The survey found 47 percent of respondents said their organizations conducted a leadership development program. An additional 16 percent said their organizations were planning on creating a program.
In addition, 74.2 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the following statement: “Medical training is archaic. It needs to be updated to accommodate new models, technologies and market forces.”
The survey did not define a physician leadership development training program, although respondents were allowed to describe their programs, which varied widely in terms of structure and time commitment.
More than 90 percent of respondents said the following skills were important or very important in leaders: adaptability, motivating others, trust and respect, strategic perspective and critical appraisal skills.
“In the industry, there is an increasing awareness of the need for improved physician engagement and integration of physicians and, as that occurs, there’s obviously a natural movement of having physicians engaged in the leadership of different types of health care systems,” American Association for Physician Leadership CEO and president Peter Angood said in a news release.
More than 90 percent of respondents said the following issues were of “high” or “very high” importance: rising healthcare costs, shortages of primary care physician shortages, reducing unnecessary care that is not evidence-based, implementing improved methods of treatment and diagnosis, negotiating with payers, increasing transparency about quality, improving physician satisfaction, increasing patient adherence to their treatments and implementing clinical health information technologies.
In addition, 69.1 percent of respondents said physicians should be held accountable for the costs and quality of care, while 69.2 percent said the medical profession was less attractive of option compared with when they began their careers.
Executive Editor
Tim Casey joined TriMed Media Group in 2015 as Executive Editor. For the previous four years, he worked as an editor and writer for HMP Communications, primarily focused on covering managed care issues and reporting from medical and health care conferences. He was also a staff reporter at the Sacramento Bee for more than four years covering professional, college and high school sports. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA degree from Georgetown University.