Breaking Out of the Health Care Abyss

In various health care magazines, emails to executives, and social media discussions, there's a recurring theme: lists of the top ten challenges that CEOs in the health care industry feel they face today. These lists are often referred to as the 'what keeps me up at night' lists. While it's vital for health system leaders and board members to be aware of these challenges, mere awareness isn’t sufficient. Success in the current, highly demanding health care landscape requires the implementation of robust action plans. This book is driven by the critical need to bridge the gap between identifying challenges and actively addressing them to secure a successful future.Many health care providers have shown lackluster clinical and financial results, which strongly suggests that successful action plans are often absent in the strategies of many boards and leadership teams. The fact that the yearly list of challenges presented by CEOs from diverse health systems—whether small, medium, or large—remains largely unchanged over the past decade underscores this point. Common issues include a shortage of primary care providers, declining inpatient numbers, reduced profitability, inconsistent clinical outcomes, weak clinical integration and collaboration, and fragmented care arising from insufficient coordination across the continuum of care.Since 1999, the authors of this book have been addressing leadership, governance, and management challenges both nationally and internationally. They foresaw changes in health care that many could not have imagined. Their aim is to guide readers in successfully leading their organizations through transformation amidst the current upheaval in the health care industry.