Education, Experience And Career Path Distinguish
Leaders Of Top Hospitals
Cejka Search and Solucient
Release Findings from Study of Hospital Leadership Characteristics
CHICAGO and ST. LOUIS, July 26, 2005 — Developing leadership from within their organizations is a winning strategy for the nation's high performing hospitals. Chief executive officers of top national benchmark hospitals are more likely to be promoted from within, have more operational experience and reach higher levels of education than their counterparts at other hospitals. Likewise, they more often promote others from within to form their senior leadership teams; where members similarly have more operational experience and are more highly educated.
These and other findings
were released today in the 2005 Hospital CEO Leadership Survey conducted
in partnership by Cejka
Search and Solucient®.
The Survey, completed by more than 100 hospital CEOs, was designed to identify
their characteristics, leadership team composition, organizational performance
and future strategies for success, and contrast the findings between those
identified as "best of breed" and "median" performers. The entire report
of Survey results can be found at: www.cejkasearch.com/ceosurvey.
"Competition for the
CEO job in a hospital is fierce," said Carol Westfall, president of St.
Louis-based Cejka Search. "This new, research-based intelligence about CEO
characteristics and practices is intended to build the industry's knowledge
and help hospital boards build high performing teams."
"The Survey represents
the first formal step into evidence-based management research," said Jean
Chenoweth, senior vice president of the Center for Healthcare Improvement
at Evanston, Ill.-based Solucient. "Our findings show that CEOs in consistently
high performing hospitals place different emphasis on evaluating organizational
success and defining future success. They are preparing differently for
the future."
Cejka Search and Solucient
surveyed CEOs in two distinct categories: 1) Best of Breed hospitals, which
are winners of Solucient's 100
Top Hospitals®: National Benchmarks for Success award three times or
more in the last five years; and 2) Median hospitals, which scored in the
third quintile over the last five years and have not won a 100 Top Hospital
award in the past five years.
Major categories of
exploration in this Survey include: CEO characteristics, leadership team
composition, organizational performance and future strategies.
Other key findings revealed
in the Survey are more subtle than obvious:
- The chief medical
officer is a member of the top leadership of more Best of Breed hospitals,
but Median hospitals are catching up, adding CMOs to their top leadership
team at a faster rate.
- Both groups monitor
many of the same critical indicators for operational performance. Best
of Breed hospital CEOs rank clinical outcomes and financial outcomes as
nearly equal in importance. Median hospital CEOs rank clinical care processes
significantly higher than do Best of Breed hospital CEOs.
- Ninety-eight percent
(98%) of Best of Breed hospital CEOs monitor national benchmarks as their
most common level of data for performance improvement and are significantly
more likely to monitor local benchmarks.
- Nearly every hospital
surveyed includes a chief nursing officer in their top leadership teams,
but more Best of Breed hospitals have adopted nursing strategies such
as Magnet status, shared governance and pay for performance.
"The Survey reflects,
in quantifiable and objective terms, many of the same CEO characteristics
that our experience has shown to be most important to hospital boards,"
Westfall noted. "The top three areas: 1) experience and results, a proven
track record that includes a history of building and sustaining successful
leadership teams; 2) operational strength and compatible strategic focus
on key success factors; and 3) exceptional ability as a leader who can articulate
the vision and serve as the mission-keeper and moral compass of the organization."
"Our partnership in
this Survey is part of our goal to provide the healthcare industry with
better business tools and scientific processes to define and measure organizational
management," Chenoweth said.
For the past 12 years,
Solucient has used a national, comparative, balanced scorecard approach
to set the standard for identifying top performing hospitals across the
country through its 100 Top Hospitals®: National Benchmarks for Success
studies and awards.
About Cejka
Search and Solucient
Cejka Search is a nationally recognized executive and physician search organization
providing services exclusively to the healthcare industry for nearly 25
years. Partnering with organizations in pursuit of the nation's best healthcare
talent, Cejka Search completes over 500 assignments annually across all
levels of the healthcare continuum. Cejka Search is wholly-owned subsidiary
of publicly-held Cross Country Healthcare Inc, a leading provider of healthcare
staffing services in the United States. For more information, visit www.cejkasearch.com.
Solucient® is an information
products company serving the healthcare industry. It is the market leader
in providing tools and vital insights that healthcare managers use to improve
the performance of their organizations. By integrating, standardizing and
enhancing healthcare information, Solucient provides comparative measurements
of cost, quality and market performance. Solucient's expertise and proven
solutions enable providers, payers and pharmaceutical companies to drive
business growth, manage costs and deliver high quality care. For more information,
visit www.solucient.com.
For more information,
contact Emily Ross (Kupper Parker Communications) at 314-290-2000, Allan
Cacanindin (Cejka Search) at 314-726-1603 or Christopher N. Clemmensen (Solucient)
at 847-424-4219.
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