The role of the physician in transforming the culture of healthcare.

Purpose The healthcare system in the USA is undergoing unprecedented change and its share of unintended consequences. This paper explores the leadership role of the physician in transforming the present culture of healthcare to restore, refine and preserve its traditional care components. Design/methodology/approach The literature on change, organizational culture and leadership is leveraged to describe the structural interdependencies and dynamic complexity of the present healthcare system and to suggest how physicians can strengthen the care components of the healthcare culture. Findings When an organization's culture does not support internal integration and external adaptation, it is the responsibility of leadership to transform it. Leaders can influence culture to strengthen the care components of the healthcare system. The centrality of professionalism in the delivery of patient services places a moral, societal and ethical responsibility on physicians to lead a revitalization of the care culture. Practical implications This paper focuses on cultural issues in healthcare and provides options and guidance for physicians as they attempt to lead and manage the context in which services are delivered. Originality/value The Competing Values Framework, the major interdependent domains and five principal mechanisms for leaders to embed and fine tune culture serve as the main tenets for describing the ongoing changes in healthcare and defining the role of the physician as leaders and advocates for the Patient Care Culture.

Managing in the context of healthcare's escalating technology and evolving culture.

PURPOSE: As healthcare has become more scientifically based and far more sophisticated in terms of technology, it has become more fragmented in terms of care-giving, and less personal. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the challenging task of leading and managing in the gap between the existing and emerging cultures of healthcare. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: This paper considers the literature on culture, how it exists at many levels and in multiple forms, and the impacts it has on the US healthcare system. Further, the paper explores foundations of the current healthcare culture and attempts to forecast features of the emerging culture, incorporating examples of advances in scientific knowledge and technology. FINDINGS: System change will continue to be problematic until leaders and change agents find ways to operate effectively in the gap between the existing cultural tenets and those emerging as the result of scientific and technological advancements. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: Punctuated equilibrium theory serves as a main tenet for describing how changes will continue to push the USA towards a cultural tipping point. This paper contends that leaders and managers can succeed only by understanding and respecting both cultures and calls for improved theory development and research to help find creative ways to advance the new culture without trampling the old.

The interdisciplinary team and polytrauma rehabilitation: prescription for partnership.

Optimal outcomes for polytrauma survivors depend on the integration of complex medical, psychosocial, financial, educational, and vocational resources across diverse specialties and multiple medical centers, programs, and organizations and all in a setting of high public visibility and family involvement. Well-functioning teams are critical to service integration, and teams are more effective in supportive hospital environments. Here, we offer a model of team functioning relevant to polytrauma and outline a team training program to improve services. Furthermore, we propose a partnership among the team, hospital administrators, and national leaders and with patients and their families. Integrated care requires partnerships among the various stakeholders, and those working in polytrauma have a unique opportunity to create an updated paradigm of the team approach responsive to the complexities of contemporary health care.

Patient-focused rehabilitation team cohesiveness in veterans administration hospitals.

OBJECTIVE: To quantify the relation of hospital culture, 3 levels of leadership (hospital-level administrators, discipline-specific supervisors, attending physician on the team), and physician involvement to patient-focused rehabilitation team cohesiveness. DESIGN: Survey research. SETTING: 48 Veterans Administration hospitals (VAHs). PARTICIPANTS: Six hundred fifty members of 50 rehabilitation teams. INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. Main outcome measures Scales measuring hospital culture, administrative support, supervisor expectations, attending physician support, and physician involvement (independent variables), and patient-focused rehabilitation team cohesiveness (dependent variable). Associations between scales were examined by using a hierarchical linear regression model. RESULTS: Patient-focused team rehabilitation cohesiveness was significantly (P<.05) associated with administrative support, supervisor expectations, attending physician support, and physician involvement (Wald chi(2)=1192.66, P<.0001) (R(2)=.6431). There was no statistically significant independent association with hospital culture. CONCLUSIONS: Expectations of discipline-specific supervisors and hands-on team leadership and involvement by the attending physician were associated to a significant degree with the extent to which rehabilitation teams in VAHs reported functioning in a cohesive manner. Higher functioning on patient-focused team cohesion indicates that patient services were likely delivered with greater interprofessional communication and joint effort.

The influence of hospital culture on rehabilitation team functioning in VA hospitals.

A conceptual model of rehabilitation effectiveness, in which team functioning is influenced by hospital culture, has been previously suggested by several authors of this study. The current study tested the efficacy of the hospital culture portion of the model using survey data from 523 rehabilitation team members and 162 administrators from 50 participating Veterans Administration Hospitals (VAHs). We assessed four types of hospital culture (personal, dynamic, formal, and production-oriented) using an instrument developed originally for a Competing Values Model. Rehabilitation team members and administrators perceived three of the four hospital cultures differently (p < 0.0001), agreeing only on production-oriented culture. With the use of VAH dominant culture as the independent variable, statistically significant differences were found among all nine measures of team functioning (dependent variables). The major contrast was between personal versus formal hospital culture types.