This is Part 2 of a Four-part Leadership Transformation Series (LTS). Read Part 1 Here.

Transformation in healthcare is personal: it requires the transformation of health system leaders. This LTS begins to speak to key differences in some of the fundamentals of transformational vs traditional leadership in healthcare.

 This article focuses on the changing role delineation of leaders.
 

The leadership need for ‘the Integrator’ is re-shaping traditional CEO and COO roles.

A few decades ago, the role of ‘the Integrator’ in healthcare leadership did not exist – at least not in the form needed today. Unlike roles with new names – CTO, CMIO, CPHMO, etc. - the same titles of CEO or COO may be used for a healthcare system, yet the shapes of these roles bear little resemblance to those with the same titles used in a hospital or other ‘vertical.’

While a hospital administrator/CEO is expected to stay close to the pulse of acute care operations, the system CEO is expected to transcend operations to assure an aerial view/perspective, i.e., to become more visionary and system-focused. The transition from hospital to system requires a view that is less entrenched with how we have run hospitals and more focused on the population served. Despite use of the same title for both roles, it is the difference between being ‘tied down’ and ‘freed up.’ Read Full Article.