Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

Health care needs more physician CEOs

Alexi Nazem, MD
Policy
July 25, 2018
Share
Tweet
Share

STAT_Logo If Atul Gawande’s first week as CEO of a health care startup was anything like mine, I hope he is able to get away from it all and enjoy a completely relaxing weekend. He will have earned it.

After Gawande was named to head the joint venture between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan, some critics said that choosing a physician was a mistake. I disagree — a physician is exactly what this new company needs.

Health care in America is at a crossroads. Our success in navigating the many challenges ahead will depend heavily on who is leading the charge.

As a physician and entrepreneur myself, I firmly believe two things about how to fix health care. One is that the system will not be able to heal itself from within — true improvement will come only from innovative new entrants driving creative destruction from the outside. The other is that those innovative companies must be led by people intimately familiar with what is happening on the frontlines of care: doctors, nurses, and others who directly care for patients.

The health care gold rush we have witnessed since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 has attracted all manner of prospectors, many of whom have been fabulously successful in other industries. Amazon, Apple, Google, and other tech companies are arriving in the health care space with disruption in their DNA and promising to revolutionize health care as they have other parts of our lives.

What many of these technologists have learned is that the same “move fast and break things” techniques that worked elsewhere just don’t fly in the complex, conservative, and cautious health care environment. The past couple of decades are littered with examples of promising ideas and leaders who failed when they actually confronted the intricate and confusing web of health care. Google Health. Jawbone. Practice Fusion. HealthSpot. Better.

Brilliant technologists have come in and remade nearly every industry, so it is tempting to dismiss the health care “insider,” a word that tends to scream legacy, staid, incremental, and stubborn. But to have an impact and lead disruption in health care, it is necessary to understand how things work and don’t work; how to improve processes; and how to speak the language of medicine as well as the language of business.

Confronting the unique complexity of health care demands an insider’s familiarity with the system and an outsider’s willingness to break it.

Tech-driven innovators who understand that are advancing opportunities in health care in a big way — companies like Grand Rounds, Flatiron, and Oscar. While none of these organizations have CEOs who have practiced medicine, they are all regarded for their strong clinical leadership.

I am even more enthusiastic about the entry of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan into the health care space and their selection of Gawande to lead the as-yet unnamed company. He has deep, textured knowledge of our health care system from his experiences as a surgeon, a passionate medical writer, a global patient safety advocate, and the leader of a health care think tank. We need many more physician CEOs like him to take up the challenge of curing the many things that ail health care.

Think about it. Physicians are problem-solvers and tinkerers, creative and curious scientists at heart, and often lifelong learners. Of course, not all physicians are Dr. House in their unyielding exploration of every issue. But we share a commitment to top-flight care and a deep desire to identify problems, seek out their causes, and implement solutions. At a time when people are thinking about care delivery in entirely new ways, an insider’s understanding of what high-quality care really means provides a humane, non-replicable, competitive leadership advantage.

What other stakeholders in the system can draw on the experience of interacting with patients and caregivers as well as working with other clinical and business administration functions, payers, and drug companies? However exasperating those experiences can be, physicians tend to be optimistic and connected to their mission in a way other industries — and in some cases other health care executives — may struggle to be.

The physician CEO is not a new idea. Some of the finest leaders in our industry, from Toby Cosgrove at the Cleveland Clinic and John Noseworthy at the Mayo Clinic to Steve Corwin at New York-Presbyterian and David Feinberg at Geisinger, have for decades married great empathy with vision and business acumen and, as a result, have made notable strides in health care delivery.

ADVERTISEMENT

What’s newer, and may have even greater impact, is the arrival of the startup physician CEO. This group is often characterized by being passionate and willing to step out of the system as we know it and attack fundamental assumptions about health care. Impressive startup leaders like Farzad Mostashari at Aledade and Rushika Fernandopulle at Iora Health are starting to make a dent in the health care universe. I suspect Gawande will join them shortly. These leaders reap a distinct advantaged from being insiders, but aren’t handcuffed by legacy challenges.

As I operate from the inside as a tech-loving (but not tech-bred) physician CEO, it has become clear to me that our future health care leaders need to have spent time on the clinical side of health care. If they have deep technology expertise, all the better.

No matter the profile, I hope and believe that more physicians will choose this path. As scientists and tinkerers who love to diagnose and treat problems, they are bound to want to get involved in repairing the broken systems they practice in. I’m glad Gawande has joined the fray and say bring on the physician CEOs. We need them now more than ever.

Alexi Nazem is founder and CEO, Nomad Health. This article originally appeared in STAT News.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

Prev

Vaccine opponents think they know more than medical experts. Why is that?

July 25, 2018 Kevin 17
…
Next

NP/PA vs. physician: Why is there a productivity gap?

July 25, 2018 Kevin 57
…

Tagged as: Practice Management, Public Health & Policy

Post navigation

< Previous Post
Vaccine opponents think they know more than medical experts. Why is that?
Next Post >
NP/PA vs. physician: Why is there a productivity gap?

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

  • Why health care replaced physician care

    Michael Weiss, MD
  • How social media can help or hurt your health care career

    Health eCareers
  • Turn physicians into powerful health care influencers

    Kevin Pho, MD
  • Health care is not a service commodity

    Peter Spence, MD, MBA
  • Are hospital CEOs responding to the realities of health care?

    Ammura Hernandez, MD
  • The health care system will cause its own physician shortage

    Advait Suvarnakar and Aashka Suvarnakar

More in Policy

  • The lab behind the lens: Equity begins with diagnosis

    Michael Misialek, MD
  • Conflicts of interest are eroding trust in U.S. health agencies

    Martha Rosenberg
  • When America sneezes, the world catches a cold: Trump’s freeze on HIV/AIDS funding

    Koketso Masenya
  • A surgeon’s late-night crisis reveals the cost confusion in health care

    Christine Ward, MD
  • The school cafeteria could save American medicine

    Scarlett Saitta
  • Native communities deserve better: the truth about Pine Ridge health care

    Kaitlin E. Kelly
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • Make cognitive testing as routine as a blood pressure check

      Joshua Baker and James Jackson, PsyD | Conditions
    • A faster path to becoming a doctor is possible—here’s how

      Ankit Jain | Education
    • A world without antidepressants: What could possibly go wrong?

      Tomi Mitchell, MD | Meds
    • Conflicts of interest are eroding trust in U.S. health agencies

      Martha Rosenberg | Policy
    • Precision and personalization: Charting the future of cancer care [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
  • Past 6 Months

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • Internal Medicine 2025: inspiration at the annual meeting

      American College of Physicians | Physician
    • The silent crisis hurting pain patients and their doctors

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
    • What happened to real care in health care?

      Christopher H. Foster, PhD, MPA | Policy
    • Are quotas a solution to physician shortages?

      Jacob Murphy | Education
    • The hidden bias in how we treat chronic pain

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
  • Recent Posts

    • Precision and personalization: Charting the future of cancer care [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Expert Q&A: Dr. Jared Pelo, ambient clinical pioneer, explains how Dragon Copilot helps clinicians deliver better care

      Jared Pelo, MD & Microsoft & Nuance Communications | Sponsored
    • The lab behind the lens: Equity begins with diagnosis

      Michael Misialek, MD | Policy
    • Venous leak syndrome: a silent challenge faced by all men

      Elliot Justin, MD | Conditions
    • Rethinking patient payments: Why billing is the new frontline of patient care [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • The dreaded question: Do you have boys or girls?

      Pamela Adelstein, MD | Physician

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

View 7 Comments >

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • Make cognitive testing as routine as a blood pressure check

      Joshua Baker and James Jackson, PsyD | Conditions
    • A faster path to becoming a doctor is possible—here’s how

      Ankit Jain | Education
    • A world without antidepressants: What could possibly go wrong?

      Tomi Mitchell, MD | Meds
    • Conflicts of interest are eroding trust in U.S. health agencies

      Martha Rosenberg | Policy
    • Precision and personalization: Charting the future of cancer care [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
  • Past 6 Months

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • Internal Medicine 2025: inspiration at the annual meeting

      American College of Physicians | Physician
    • The silent crisis hurting pain patients and their doctors

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
    • What happened to real care in health care?

      Christopher H. Foster, PhD, MPA | Policy
    • Are quotas a solution to physician shortages?

      Jacob Murphy | Education
    • The hidden bias in how we treat chronic pain

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
  • Recent Posts

    • Precision and personalization: Charting the future of cancer care [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Expert Q&A: Dr. Jared Pelo, ambient clinical pioneer, explains how Dragon Copilot helps clinicians deliver better care

      Jared Pelo, MD & Microsoft & Nuance Communications | Sponsored
    • The lab behind the lens: Equity begins with diagnosis

      Michael Misialek, MD | Policy
    • Venous leak syndrome: a silent challenge faced by all men

      Elliot Justin, MD | Conditions
    • Rethinking patient payments: Why billing is the new frontline of patient care [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • The dreaded question: Do you have boys or girls?

      Pamela Adelstein, MD | Physician

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

Health care needs more physician CEOs
7 comments

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...