Becker's Hospital Review

14 POPULATION HEALTH 14 CEO / STRATEGY Beaumont Health CEO, CMO target of no-confidence petition By Ayla Ellison A no-confidence petition on Beau- mont Health President and CEO John Fox and Executive Vice Presi- dent and CMO David Wood Jr., MD, is being circulated by some physician leaders at the Southfield, Mich.-based health system, ac- cording to Crain's Detroit Business. e petition cites concerns about patient care and the "imminent threat" of Beaumont's pro- posed merger with Advocate Aurora Health. "Over the last five years, we the Medical Staff of Beaumont Health have seen a rapid and progressive deterioration in every as- pect of patient care at Beaumont Health," the no-confidence petition stated, accord- ing to Crain's Detroit Business. "We no lon- ger have confidence in the administration's ability to provide a safe place for us to care for our patients." Beaumont and Advocate Aurora, which has dual headquarters in Downers Grove, Ill., and Milwaukee, announced June 17 that they signed a nonbinding letter of in- tent to create a 36-hospital health system spanning Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois. e no-confidence petition claims the pro- posed merger would remove local control of Beaumont's hospitals, according to Crain's Detroit Business. Mr. Fox and Dr. Wood told Crain's Detroit Business that they're taking physicians' con- cerns seriously. ey planned to meet with chairs of clinical departments and medical staff presidents to better understand the phy- sicians' specific concerns. n Intermountain CEO: 7 things I've learned from the pandemic By Morgan Haefner E xpansion of telehealth. Primary care in- vestments. Unaffordable healthcare costs. None of these topics are new to health- care, but the COVID-19 pandemic has provid- ed fresh insight into just how important they are in the delivery of care. In an article for the Harvard Business Review, Marc Harrison, MD, president and CEO of Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare, asked, "As bad as the pandemic is, could we end up doing better work when it's over? Can it teach us anything about how to serve our patients bet- ter and more affordably than we did before?" In the article, published July 20, he outlined seven lessons that stand to change how things have always been done: 1. Harness technology more aggressively. 2. Put a greater emphasis on prevention. 3. Eliminate racial healthcare disparities. 4. Merge mental health with primary care ser- vices. 5. Speed up innovation. 6. Seek new partnerships, traditional and not. 7. Address high healthcare costs. n CEO coronavirus response swayed by 3 biases By Morgan Haefner C EOs don't have road maps for unprecedented situations like the coronavirus pandemic, and instead rely heavily on their ex- isting skills and personality traits in their response. When relying on these personal traits, leaders have their own deci- sion-making biases, researchers from the University of Applied Scienc- es & Arts Western Switzerland, the China Europe International Business School and the University of Geneva, wrote for Harvard Business Review. To better understand these biases, the researchers surveyed the CEOs of more than 500 Chinese firms and their COVID-19 response. Here are the three opposing biases the researchers found, and how they affect crisis response: 1. "The glass is half full" versus "the glass is half empty." Whether a CEO's perspective is optimistic or pessimistic affects how they re- spond in a crisis. Both have their setbacks — being overly optimistic can put leaders out of touch with reality, while being overly pessimis- tic may lead to employee disengagement. The researchers recom- mend an open and approachable method that allows for employees to give feedback. 2. Costs versus people. CEOs shouldn't solely focus on cost or peo- ple at the expense of the other, the researchers said. Negative operat- ing returns and a lack of motivation among employees are both detri- mental to business. The authors recommended that instead of seeing where costs can be cut, asking, "How can we continue to compete?" 3. Short-term versus long-term thinking. CEOs who are too fo- cused on the short-term may make decisions that are harmful for future business, while those who are too focused on the long-term may miss needs that are essential for survival. The researchers rec- ommend having a counterpart who can help map out the effects of short-term and long-term decision-making. n

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