Healthcare is rapidly changing, as is the technological infrastructure supporting it. As the stakes grow, healthcare organizations depend on their chief information officers (CIOs) and technology leaders more than ever to drive strategic technology roadmaps, optimize electronic health records, maintain information security and regulatory compliance, and leverage their organization’s data to uncover new opportunities. [continue reading…]
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How to Get There Faster: New Approaches to Closing Critical Leadership Gaps to Accelerate Performance
Imagine a newly appointed nurse executive having a dedicated, tenured Nurse Executive Advisor to fast-track the newly advanced nurse leader’s executive development and accelerate C-suite readiness. Side by side, they work together through a customized leadership development curriculum to conquer the real-life challenges of today while building broader competencies that will last a lifetime. [continue reading…]
Building a Future-fit Executive Team
As the preeminent professional society for healthcare leaders, ACHE advances healthcare management excellence through education and research. They recently tapped Kirby Bates Senior Vice President of Executive Search Dennis Kain, MHA, FACHE, for his deep insights and decades of successful experience on ‘Building a Future-fit Executive Team’ for the November/December Issue of their journal, Healthcare [continue reading…]
Not Hiring an Interim Leader? Watch Out for These 3 Risks
In periods of transition and change, it’s common for healthcare organizations to think they simply need to dig in, cultivate their resilience, and push through. After all, is the cost of engaging an interim leader worth it when your time and resources could be used to identify talent or drive initiatives forward? It’s absolutely [continue reading…]
What to Know When Hiring a Healthcare CFO
What is the role of a healthcare CFO? It’s a simple question, but in hospitals and hospital systems across the country, the answer is changing rapidly. As the industry changes and hospital consolidation becomes increasingly common, CFOs have become more involved with organizational strategies of all kinds. A CFO today is not just an [continue reading…]
Five Signs You Need an Interim Laboratory Consultant
Labs are integral to exceptional patient care, and in today’s healthcare landscape, the demands on laboratories are greater than ever. Healthcare organizations must balance efficiency and precision while championing the needs of both patients and the laboratory team. Excellence in the lab is a matter of life and death — for patients and organizations. [continue reading…]
Four Vital Pillars for Effective Leadership in Healthcare Teams
In the ever-changing world of healthcare, where advancements and challenges intertwine, organizational success hinges on the collaboration of a well-coordinated leadership team. Effective leadership stands at the epicenter of achievement, becoming the driving force that not only achieves organizational goals but also surpasses the multifaceted expectations of diverse stakeholder groups. What enables that level [continue reading…]
How an Interim Specialty Clinic Director Increased OR Cases by 12%
Perioperative Services and the clinics that support them can be the highest cost center in a healthcare delivery organization, even while it also represents the most opportunity for sustainable long-term growth—accounting for upwards of 80% of a typical hospital’s revenue. With today’s increased pressure on executive leadership to improve both financial performance and quality scores, there [continue reading…]
Top 3 Reasons to Engage Interim Healthcare Leadership
Interim leaders can save the day in myriad situations when a healthcare organization is facing temporary leadership vacancies and transitions, specific project needs, and performance improvement opportunities. These are the top 3 scenarios in which high-performing health systems make the smart choice to engage interim executive leaders: 1. Leadership Vacancies and Transitions When there [continue reading…]
5 Key Reasons Why Recruiting Leaders for Private Equity-backed Healthcare Organizations is Different
Recruiting leaders for private equity-backed healthcare organizations can present unique challenges and considerations compared to recruiting for other types of companies and healthcare delivery organizations. “Over the years, I have found that executives with PE and VC experience are critical to the success of an organization,” says Troy Keach, vice president of executive search and [continue reading…]
5 Strategies for Developing Self-Awareness in Leadership
The American Organization of Nurse Leaders’ (AONL) core competencies are anchored by the ‘Leader Within.’ The ‘Leader Within’ seeks feedback, reflects, and understands how their thoughts influence their actions. In short, the ideal leader is self-aware—and they seek to become even more self-aware. Why Does Self-Awareness Matter for Leaders? As leaders ascend to senior echelons [continue reading…]
Exceeding Private Equity’s Expectations with Executive Recruiting
In the healthcare industry, private equity (PE) companies are just as likely to strike fear in the hearts of healthcare providers as they are to cause them to see dollar signs. For physician practice owners, the compensation offered by PE companies in exchange for a stake in the practice can be tempting. However, some [continue reading…]
5 Tips for Cultivating Civility in the Workplace
A workplace is only as good as its culture, and a culture can’t thrive without civility. Civility in healthcare organizations fosters teamwork, reduces conflicts, and can enhance productivity. What’s more, civility is an ethical obligation for nurses. The ANA’s Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements states that nurses are obligated to create an [continue reading…]
How an Interim Lab Manager Improved Operations and the Bottom Line
When the executive team of this 250+ bed California community hospital discovered challenges in Laboratory Services, they contacted Kirby Bates Associates for a highly qualified Interim Director to align the department with contemporary best practices and technology. Within days, KBA engaged a seasoned interim leader who had additional expertise in LEAN Principles and Practices to [continue reading…]
How Leaders Can Learn How to Disagree Respectfully
“Society frowns at disagreeableness. As human beings we are hardwired to seek the approval of those around us. Yet a radical and transformative thought goes nowhere without the willingness to challenge convention.” -Malcolm Gladwell If everybody always agreed on everything, the world would be boring and progress would be stifled. Disagreements and compromise are [continue reading…]
How to Stand Out as an Internal Candidate
As care delivery organizations continue to tread uncertain waters, C-suites across the nation remain in flux with retirements, reductions in force, and elimination of roles. This dynamic environment also represents an opportunity for emerging leaders. Often an internal candidate is found to be the strongest for the role. The American College of Healthcare Executives [continue reading…]
Why Hospitals Should Invest in the OR Even While Cutting Costs
In these days of skyrocketing healthcare costs attributed to a combination of labor shortages, rising inflation, supply chain disruptions, low surgery volumes, higher equipment prices, and more, the traditional C-suite response is to implement organization-wide budget cuts, stop expansion projects, and put recruitment on hold. While this may seem fair and equitable at first blush, [continue reading…]
Why Compassionate Care in Nursing is So Important and How to Achieve It
What is Compassionate Care in Nursing? According to a systematic literature review in 2016 published by the National Center for Biotechnology, “Compassion originates as an empathic response to suffering, as a rational process which pursues patients’ wellbeing, through specific, ethical actions directed at finding a solution to their suffering. We therefore define the term [continue reading…]
The Value of Interim Nurse Leaders
Maintaining safe, high-quality care and an excellent patient experience are top priorities of every healthcare organization. While leadership stability is widely appreciated as essential to achieving these goals, we are living in a time of the Great Resignation. This begs the question: how does an organization achieve such stability even during times of volatility? Many [continue reading…]
How to Promote Diversity in Nursing Leadership
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have become standard practice in myriad industries and based on results, it’s not hard to imagine why. DEI programs help companies access larger talent pools, improve employee engagement, and bring new perspectives to organizational challenges, among other things. In fact, around 76% of job candidates report that a diverse [continue reading…]