The 7 habits of highly effective medical directors

Like the well-known 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, the seven steps for successful medical management outlined in this article offer an inspirational guide for physician leadership in today's chaotic health care arena. Setting a vision, communicating the vision, and leading employees to realize the vision may sound like the simple characteristics of any leader. True leaders, however, must be prepared to delve deeply into their health care organizations. They must understand the inner workings of their committees and develop positive relationships with the staff. They must provide the technical tools necessary for the staff to work toward the vision, and understand the measured steps that managers must take along the path to achieving success for the entire organization.     

Recommendations for new medical directors and physician advisors. Administrative clinical pearls

Presented here are "administrative pearls" that evolved out of a health plan's program to help new physician advisors and medical directors in their daily operations and decision-making process. The list of eight recommendations represents accumulated wisdom from experienced medical directors, physician advisors, and nurse managers.     

Hospital medical directors, quality of care, and financial returns

You are a physician executive working very hard within a hospital on all sorts of medical staff issues and quality of care. You answer to the board. The latter, through its administrators, may still have difficulty documenting the precise value of a full-time physician executive. Your hospital is losing money or not making enough profit for capital expenditures and salary raises. It is considering or will have to consider staff cuts. What can you do that will influence the bottom line, produce a quality image, and quantify your value?     

新世纪:中国管理科学界的挑战、机遇与对策

21世纪我们将面临什么样的社会经济环境 ?在该环境下社会经济活动的管理将具有什么新特点 ?这些特点对管理科学将提出什么新要求 ?面对这些要求 ,中国管理科学界的挑战、机遇和对策是什么 ?文章将对这些问题展开讨论和分析     

Office of the future — New challenges for operational research

A technological barrage has been fired on the office environment in an attempt to attack rising costs and improve productivity. Although very new, a dramatic level of effort is already being applied. The state of the art is changing daily but so far the problems still outnumber the solutions. The opportunities to contribute are significant. This paper briefly describes the scene, characterizes the state-of-the-art and suggests an entry strategy for the OR professional. The probable response of the OR profession is considered.     

New governance for a new era: issues and challenges for integrating systems

In this first part of a two-part column, Dr. Ruffin introduces seven key factors that will govern the operations of integrated systems. It is important to understand, he says, that, in the movement from a fee-for-service payment mechanism, in which the various elements of the health care field bill for their services independently and according to rules designed for their benefit, to an intregrated system, in which such independence can only lead to confusion in information systems, very substantial changes will be required in the governance of our health care institutions and organizations. In the second part of the column, Dr. Ruffin will elaborate on the seven factors that must be considered in the transition.     

New governance for a new era: issues and challenges for integrating systems

In this second part of a two-part column, Dr. Ruffin provides greater detail on seven key factors that he believes will govern the operations of integrated systems. Successful systems, he says, will be those that attract and retain physicians, have disciplined governance, integrate care through sharing of information among system elements, conserve capital, ensure strategic growth, control costs, and are proficient at processing information. It is important to understand, he says, that, in the movement from a fee-for-service payment mechanism, in which the various elements of the health care field bill for their services independently and according to rules designed for their benefit, to an integrated system, in which such independence can only lead to chaos, very substantial changes will be required in the governance of our health care institutions and organizations.     

Management knowledge and skills required by U.K. and U.S. medical directors

A survey was undertaken of the medical directors of National Health Service trusts in the South Thames Regional Health Authority of the United Kingdom. The purpose of the survey was to ascertain medical directors' views regarding the importance of various areas of administrative practice, their preparedness in these areas of administrative knowledge prior to taking up their roles as medical directors, and their views as to the body of knowledge required for future medical directors. The study was compared with a similar study undertaken in the United States. While there were many areas of agreement between the English and the American medical administrators, there were also areas of significant differences of opinion. The need to develop a recognized training program in medical administration is acknowledged.     

权威董事专业性、高管激励与创新活跃度研究

通过我国A股上市公司2007年～2015年的数据, 实证检验了权威专业董事通过高管激励影响创新活跃度的逻辑链条.发现权威专业董事通过影响高管激励的结构与水平增强了企业创新的活跃度, 且不同类别的权威专业董事均能够产生积极作用.这种影响不仅促进了企业的实质性创新, 提升了企业的创新效率, 并使之具有可持续性.研究结论在对主要变量采取不同度量方式以及控制了内生性等因素影响的情况下依然成立.本文的研究结论拓展了权威专业董事职能发挥的途径, 增补了上市公司高管激励的经验证据, 同时, 为董事会治理有效性的识别提供了新的视角.对于当前企业高管创新激励机制的匹配性设计, 以及监管部门完善董事会治理规则具有一定的借鉴意义.     

The adoption of deferred share unit plans for outside directors: economic and social determinants

This paper investigates the antecedents of adopting deferred compensation plans for corporate directors. Relying on agency and network theories, we compare the economic and social characteristics of firms that have adopted a deferred share unit plan for their directors over the 1997–2005 period (130 firms) to a control sample. Our findings show that firms where outside directors have higher agency costs, firms having a block holder that owns a significant voting power, firms whose outside directors serve on other boards having adopted deferred compensation plans, and firms that hire compensation consultants are more likely to adopt a deferred share unit plan for their directors than other firms. These findings highlight the importance of integrating economic and social perspectives when investigating the diffusion of compensation practices.     

Board of directors and insider trading with share repurchase programs

This study examines the relationship between insider trading and board of directors’ characteristics around stock repurchase announcements. It is hypothesized that information disparity between insiders and shareholders from share repurchases announcements creates opportunities for insiders to time their trading. However, there is little evidence on whether board characteristics reduce the probability of insider trading with repurchase announcements. Using data from firms listed on Forbes 500 between 1998 and 2004, we found that insider trading is related to share repurchase announcements. In order to focus on board of directors’ role, we controlled for board characteristics that may change the repurchase decision. Our results provide corroborative evidence of insider net selling around repurchase announcements and the advantages of board characteristics to offset insider trading. In particular, the results suggest that board tenure, directors’ ownership and board directorship change positively insider trading around repurchase announcements. Hence, Securities and Exchange Commission should consider rigorous restrictions on share repurchase announcements and be aware of potential influence of the corporate governance device.     

Engineering management challenges

Today's engineering managers must be increasingly aware of the social consequences of new technology, of the political and economic implications of their decisions, and of new international developments. They must consider the long-term — often extremely long-term — risks that a new product or process may pose to society and the quality of life. They have a responsibility to inform the government and the public about technology that impinges on societal concerns. They also have a responsibility to aid in establishing sound government regulations. More direct political involvement will help them attain their goals. In addition, as engineers, they must keep abreast of rapidly changing technology, both at home and abroad.