Structuring Physician Leadership To Promote Accountable Care

Physician leadership is widely seen as crucial to drive accountable care and population health, but the question is how. A recent survey of accountable care organizations (ACOs) across the country has shown significant interest and motivation by physicians for participating and playing strong leadership roles in ACOs. There have been significant challenges with physicians providing effective leadership of population health programs: Physician-led population health services have not been achieving the overall outcomes and demonstrating value. Physician services have not been coordinated with the hospitals and health plans, leading to redundancy in population health initiatives. Front-line physicians have been perceived as being recalcitrant and uncooperative due to a fundamental lack of trust in the executive leadership regarding population health programs. These challenges with physician-led attempts in population health management have resulted in these programs not being effective in managing costs and enhancing value. These trends have led to a great deal of skepticism about the potential of the new models of Accountable Care Organizations to have any better track record. At Evolent Health, a population health management company supporting health care delivery systems to enhance the value that they deliver, we have seen across these health systems that there are three types of innovations in physician governance and leadership which offer the greatest opportunity t...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Organization and Delivery Accountable Care Organizations Physicians Source Type: blogs