The physician leader of the future will need to be more than a strong clinician. As healthcare grows more complex, leaders will be expected to navigate technology, operations and finance without losing sight of the people at the center of care.
Three physician leaders joined Becker’s to discuss the skills they believe will separate the most effective leaders in the years ahead.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What’s one skill that will separate great physician leaders from everyone else over the next five years?
James Augustine, MD. Medical Director for Lee County EMS (Fort Myers, Fla.): The ability to use a simplified computer system directly in their practice, with decision support and integrated order sets relevant to the practice site. The restoration of the importance of the physician at the bedside managing the patient, rather than pecking away at the frustrating computer, will define the great physicians and leaders.
Peter Bravos, MD. Chief Medical Officer of Sutter Health’s Surgery Center Division (Yuba City, Calif.): Fluency across the clinical and business divide. I mean the ability to sit in a room full of operators and financiers, hold your own on the numbers and still carry clinical credibility back to the medical staff. Most physician leaders can speak one language well. The ones who matter over the next five years will move between both without losing the trust of either. That fluency can’t be delegated to a consultant or an administrator. It’s the work of the leader.
Walter Allen Fink, DO. Associate Vice President and Chief Medical Officer UT Health San Antonio: Systems thinking. Great physician leaders will need to see beyond their own department or individual patient encounter and understand how clinical care, operations, workforce, technology, finance, and culture are all intertwined.
But they also cannot lose the human side of leadership. You still have to build relationships, earn trust, listen well, and understand what the people doing the work are experiencing every day.
The leaders who can see the big picture while still connecting with people one-on-one — and then bring those groups together around a common purpose — are going to be the ones who make the biggest difference.
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