AAPL Chief Talks to 'Modern Healthcare' About Trends in Physician Leadership

Health care organizations are recognizing that outcomes are better when physicians are integrated into leadership roles, president and CEO Peter Angood says.

Health care directors are getting the message and recognizing that if they get physicians integrated into leadership roles, their organizations will perform better.

That’s what Peter Angood, MD, FRCS(C), FACS, MCCM, president and CEO of the American Association for Physician Leadership, says in a recent interview with Modern Healthcare , in which he offers his perspective on industry trends.

“There are mature organizations that also recognize if they are going to really leverage the physicians' experience, they need to provide them with the additional knowledge and experiences and the skills to really assume these roles,” he says.

About 5 percent of hospital leaders were physicians in 2014, according to AAPL, with anecdotal evidence suggesting that is rising. In the U.S. News & World Report’s 2017 top 20 honor roll of hospitals, about half had CEOs that were physicians.

Chart: Physician leaders play big role in U.S. News' honor roll

“There is a trend in our industry that really makes it ripe for physicians to pursue that type of a trajectory and also for the organizations to recognize that if they get their physicians integrated better into leadership roles, that organization will perform better,” Angood says. “Patient outcomes will be better and their patient satisfaction will become better overall.”

During the interview with Modern Healthcare Managing Editor Matthew Weinstock, Angood also touches on how the trend is playing out at smaller or rural hospitals, the successes with clinical-administrative synergy and approaches to physician burnout.

Read excerpts from the Modern Healthcare interview here.