Interviews & Expert Perspectives

These interviews and expert-written features offer a look into the healthcare industry from those who know it best: professors, practicing healthcare administrators, advocates, and leaders in professional associations.

Preventative Healthcare: A Healthcare Leader's Overview November 21, 2024

Preventative Healthcare: A Healthcare Leader's Overview

This essay establishes a basic framework for debating the merits of preventive care by exploring its primary components, proposed economic and societal benefits, barriers, and predicted future shifts.

Core Competencies for Healthcare Leaders (Part 3) October 10, 2024

Core Competencies for Healthcare Leaders (Part 3)

While healthcare and technology partnerships may feel riskier than those in other sectors due to the stakes involved in people’s health and well-being, they are increasingly necessary for the survival of health systems and the healthcare sector. Leaders must be prepared to take appropriate risks to foster short- and long-term innovation.

Core Competencies for Healthcare Leaders (Part 2) September 19, 2024

Core Competencies for Healthcare Leaders (Part 2)

Importantly, interprofessional collaboration can also provide an opportunity for individuals from historically less advantaged groups to begin building the types of professional relationships that are critical to reaching the highest levels of leadership within an organization. This promulgates diversity up through the chain of management in a more organic way.

Core Competencies for Healthcare Leaders (Part 1) August 30, 2024

Core Competencies for Healthcare Leaders (Part 1)

Mastering the array of skills needed to effectively navigate and manage the people, processes, and tools at play is crucial for gaining and retaining a competitive edge. This three-part essay series summarizes important areas in which rising healthcare leaders should focus their efforts as they work to develop their essential skills and build out their knowledge base. This first essay will cover digital literacy & technological proficiency, patient-centered care competencies, and value-based care expertise.

UnitedHealth CEO Grilled by Congress About Change Healthcare’s Crisis July 26, 2024

UnitedHealth CEO Grilled by Congress About Change Healthcare’s Crisis

Congressional leaders in the House of Representatives and the Senate unloaded blistering criticisms at Change Healthcare’s parent company UnitedHealth Group during a pair of hearings on Capitol Hill in May 2024. At issue was UnitedHealth’s management of the February cyberattack on its subsidiary Change Healthcare.

U.S. Healthcare Spending by Sector: What to Know March 22, 2024

U.S. Healthcare Spending by Sector: What to Know

In the first article of this series, we looked at how the U.S. healthcare sector is measured, including the entities responsible and their methodology. This piece details each activity that comprises the enormous U.S. healthcare sector. We can group these into two major categories: healthcare services and goods, and public and private spending for healthcare and related initiatives. These categories can have their size measurably impacted by three powerful forces: population growth, healthcare inflation, and technological advances.

A Day in the Life of a Hospital CEO - An Interview with Dr. David Pate March 18, 2024

A Day in the Life of a Hospital CEO - An Interview with Dr. David Pate

Being the chief executive officer of a hospital means being part business leader and part politician, requiring a blend of diplomacy, advocacy, business management, and financial sense. And the stakes of this role aren’t just profit and loss, but life and death.

Measuring the Healthcare Sector: Who, What, Why? February 2, 2024

Measuring the Healthcare Sector: Who, What, Why?

Alongside HHS and still within the Department of Commerce, one finds the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The BEA is responsible for producing economic statistics in general. They contribute to measuring healthcare spending as part of their calculation of GDP as a whole—the healthcare sector just happens to entail one-fifth of that total amount. They coordinate closely with NHEA and CMS on these calculations.

Greening the Healthcare Sector: How Hospitals Can Reduce Emissions January 23, 2024

Greening the Healthcare Sector: How Hospitals Can Reduce Emissions

In late 2015, nearly 200 governments worldwide signed a landmark action plan known as the Paris Agreement. After decades of blame-shifting, disorganization, and avoidance, there was finally a formal acknowledgment of the shared nature of climate change and a unified effort toward tackling the mounting crisis.