Turning Mission-Based Academic-Department Leaders into a Leadership Team: A Case Study in Creating Value

Lee A. Fleisher, M.D., and Beulah Trey, Ph.D. 

The current economic and legislative reality creates an imperative for leaders in academic medicine to develop a value equation — one that takes into account clinical outcomes and financial impact— for integrating their three missions: clinical care, education, and research. Even exceptionally skilled individual leaders will not be able to forge this future. Rather, improved performance requires diverse, well-coordinated teams capable of leveraging their differences and engaging in collaborative problem-solving and continuous learning. 

In most academic medical departments, the three missions are led as silos. And with strong reason: “the cultural barriers to change in health care—doctors’ resistance to being measured, their need to be ’perfect,’ their reluctance to criticize colleagues, their resistance to teamwork—reflect a deep-seated belief that physician autonomy is critical to quality in health care.”  Sharing stories about transcending these obstacles is critical. 

Read our journey on the NEJM Leading Health Care Innovation Site

Read the full story here: http://images.nejm.org/editorial/supplementary/2013/hbr16-fleisher.pdf