Summary week 4

John Byrnes, MD, president and CEO, Byrnes Group LLC, Ada, Michigan

PART 1: SUMMARY.

According to John Brynes et al, the problem of hiring a wrong physician executive who is good at their clinical work but not a good leader is too common. These decisions can be costly as the organization will have to incur more recruitment expenses. He therefore suggests three steps for successful hiring of chief medical officers. Partnering with leadership to appoint a selection committee would help everyone on the committee to have an input in the selection process although the CEO has the final word. Having the selection committee read the relevant books and articles on physician leadership provided refreshment to those with hiring experience and introduced those who were hiring a chief medical officer for the first time. Retaining an experienced executive recruiter would enable successful recruitment of the right chief medical officer which first time physician executives often fail.

PART 2: PROBLEM.

I have worked at one of the IHG hospitals that is a health care provider and the services at the hospitals were being delayed because of poor co-ordination in management that was at the hospital. The old Chief Medical Officer had just retired and a new one had to be appointed. The patients suffered a lot and there was a lot of problems due to the problem of disagreement between the management of the hospital and the new Chief Medical officer. Short and long-term goals for the staff were mostly missing resulting in confusion among the staff and lack of long-term objectives. Such cases as disease management and insurance policies for the medical staff were missing and this posed a huge danger to the employees at the hospital. During this period the staff attended fewer meetings where hardly any communication from the management was communicated as had usually been the norm. There was also a delay in budget development and remuneration of funds to the hospital which caused a lot of inconveniences to the patients and most of the patient complaints went unattended. Needless to say, policies were never reviewed or improved during this period.

PART 3: HR INITIATIVE.

The human resource team responsible for appointing or employing new employees or members of the management need to come up with policies to ensure that the new employees or appointees have a good personal and working relationship with the existing team. They also need to revise their hiring criteria to include the ethical behavior of the person being hired. If they would still work under disagreement with their colleagues is really important because disagreements seem to be present in our every day life and may be unavoidable. Having an experienced executive recruiter on the recruitment team would help to identify the right person with the right ethical and work experience for the job and avoid candidates who might be having personal issues with the company and want to use their positions for revenge. This would help solve the problem by providing a proper framework of work ethics that needs to be followed by all employees in their different positions irrespective of their personal differences. It would also make sure that only the right person who is ready to work is going to be chosen.

PART 4: IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGE.

The challenge likely to be encountered during the implementation of this human resource initiative is lack of awareness of the motive of the person being appointed, elected or employed. It is hard to tell the intention that a person has for the company or organization. for example, you cannot tell whether a person has a good or bad motive until they are in office which leads to an increase in recruitment costs. It might also be hard to tell any existing personal grudges between the candidates in the selection of a Chief Medical Officer and the existing team of executives who are not on the selection committee. Besides, the change in policy might be used unfavorably by incompetent executives on the selection committee to prevent or oppose selection of a Chief Medical Officer who might be competent enough to perform their duties even better.

PART 5: EVALUATION.

To evaluate the performance of the HR initiative, the hospital would use self-assessment techniques as well as acquiring information from other stakeholders such as colleagues by performance appraisal. Questionnaires can also be given to patients and other staff so as to gather information on the performance of the new Chief Medical Officer.

References

Hopkins, M. M., O'Neil, D. A., & Stoller, J. K. (2015). Distinguishing competencies of effective physician leaders.