Leading Physicians Through Change:
How to Achieve and Sustain Results
by Jack Silversin and Mary Jan Kornacki, and ACOE Publication, 185 pages, ISBN: 0924674814; $38.
Change is the only constant in healthcare today. If neurosurgeons want to influence change with their colleagues, they ought to read Leading Physicians Through Change: How to Achieve and Sustain Results.
This book presents a step-by-step manual for leading the process of change. “Change Foundation,” part I of the book, deals with an organization’s capacity to develop and implement change. “Change Levers,” part II, takes you through the process of change. “Moving to Action,” part III, is devoted to taking steps to apply the change model and features a case study.
These authors understand physicians’ reluctance to change; their book is based on 20 years of consulting with groups of doctors. The authors place a consistent emphasis on communication.
The first three chapters explore the current state of most physician organizations. Crucial to change is a shared vision, uniform expectations and agreement on what kind of compact is needed for success. An important lever for change is to have agreement about what role each individual will play. Then, involving all the physicians in a group, guidelines must be drawn for productivity. To get physicians to accept the need for change involves creating a tension that will energize the process. Resistance is inevitable and must be addressed. Physician leaders can help change occur by creating a consistent context for the change that includes financial incentives, non-monetary rewards, resources, training, staffing, measurement and feedback.
This is a practical book and you will easily identify with the examples used. Each chapter begins with an assessment that can help the reader get in touch with the current state of his or her physician group in regard to the topic covered in the chapter. Every chapter includes sidebars contributed by healthcare leaders, who offer their insights and experience with an issue discussed in the chapter. At the end of every chapter are tools for taking action that can help the reader put the material to practical use. The sign posts on the path to organizational success today read “adapt,” “improve,” “reduce variation,” “teamwork” and “transform.” The words seem not to be part of neurosurgeons’ present vocabulary but this is a language that we must all learn. As medicine moves ever forward, knowledge of how to change will be as important to physicians’ success and the vitality of their organizations as clinical knowledge and commitment to excellence.
Gary VanderArk, MD, is a member of the AANS Board of Directors, a senior partner of Rocky Mountain Neurosurgical Alliance, Englewood, Colo., and past president of the Colorado Medical Society.