Private hospitals may wonder if doctors are suitable for management positions and this is understandable. As private are self-supporting, good returns on investment are imperative for their survival. Private hospitals might question the transferability of doctors’ skills to management positions? However, in the business of managing hospitals, studies have been consistent that the oneness in clinical and management knowledge is a powerful combination that results in quality service.
A study by Nick Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen cited in a December 2016 Harvard Business Review article offered a valuable insight. The higher the proportion of clinicians as managers within a hospital, the greater the positive overall effect as compared to when there is a separation between clinical and management knowledge within hospitals.
Dr. Ashswita Ravindran who works as a Medical Planning Executive in the division of Business Development, Branding, and Communication in a private hospital in Malaysia couldn’t agree more with the researchers. She’s speaking from her experience as a doctor in management and here are her reasons:
1. As doctors are trained to be patient-focused, doctors in management bring the right balance between patient welfare and profits. She believes that if patient safety and health are prioritised in private hospitals, patients will be loyal and return to a medical facility that has been good for them. This takes care of the business priority.
2. Compared to corporate communications personnel, doctors are better suited to identify niches of expert doctors and extract the relevant information and turn it into a business development plan. For example, a general surgeon’s expertise might be a single-incision laparoscopy surgery leaving no scars. A general communicator may not know how to identify the niche of the doctor nor to extract the information for a business development idea. Working in partnership with business managers, doctors can turn this information into a successful business plan.
3. Further, corporate communications personnel may not be able to breakdown the medical information extracted from specialists and consultants for the consumption of the general public. Doctors are at an advantage because they understand the medical jargon and they have worked with patients. Working together with corporate communications personnel, they are in a good position to package the information to external stakeholders such patients and the general public that make the information comprehendible.
Because of their many experiences with consultants, doctors are best suited to handle the temperaments and expectations of the professionals they serve. Doctors in this management position are often called Physician Liaisons.
4. Doctors serving as a patient manager between a patient receiving treatment and the consultant is also a crucial role that ought to be seriously considered by private hospitals. Doctors as patient managers can help breakdown treatment and procedures conveyed by the consultants to the patients in clearer manner. They could also convey patients’ concerns to the consultant and make the treatment process more bearable and less of an ordeal especially in complicated cases.
5. In the recent decanting of patients from government to private hospitals in view of Covid-19 medical needs in the country, Dr. Ashswita’s department was instrumental in serving as the liaison between the two institutions in relation to the management of the operation, handling records, billing, and the like. A doctor’s experience is crucial in the smooth flow of an operation of this nature.
Patients recognize quality care when they see it. The presence of doctors as managers who have been trained life-long to be patient-focused will certainly boost the confidence of patients with regard to quality service. Interestingly, studies indicate that the credibility of a hospital rises when doctors are in various levels of its management. Doctors working hand in hand with business managers and communication experts will no doubt lead to enduring relationships between a hospital and its many stakeholders both internal and external.
