The Transformation Outcomes occurring during Phase III included newly acquired leadership skills, such as providing vision, asking questions about other points of view, and listening for understanding and alignment. Furthermore, the program’s participants began to question the fundamentals of the hospital-based physician program itself. Some of the questions asked were:
1. Is the hospital-based physician program equitable to all participants?  If not,                how can we make it more equitable?
2. Who is the hospital-based physician program serving, us or our patients?
3. How can we make the program more patient-centered?

These questions, along with others shook the foundation of the hospital-based physician program resulting in an entirely new initiative to transform the program so that it might better serve the hospital’s patients. At the present time, nine months since the conclusion of the PLDP, the framework of the redesigned hospital-based physician program is almost complete and the implementation process soon will begin.

Conclusions

The steps necessary in the successful transition to stakeholder partners for physicians is, first, physician-physician integration into a cohesive group, followed by physician development to leadership roles. Our case study of a ten member hospital physician leadership development program within a larger hospital-based physician group, illustrates the application of our Physician Leadership Development Program to facilitate both steps in a physician’s transition. Two groups of outcomes resulted from this case report.  The immediately enacted group of outcomes clearly demonstrates physician-physician integration and the development of a physician-leadership architecture. The second group of outcomes, redesigning the hospital physician program, illustrates the transformative nature of physician leadership.

In this article we have shown the importance of rebuilding the patient-physician relationship which has been detrimentally altered by managed care.  We have shown that professional coaching expertise can be utilized in a cost effective manner to improve the patient-physician relationship resulting in more successful patient outcomes with reduced healthcare costs. This expertise can be directed toward the enhancement of leadership skills among physicians, in response to the changing role of the physician in the US healthcare landscape from one of stakeholder to one of stakeholder partner.

Note: All endnotes and graphics are contained in the downloadable version of this essay.

This essay is also relevant to the following library categories: employee engagement, evidence-based coaching, internal politics and leadership coaching.