Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, M.D., recently released guidance that the workplace can positively and negatively affect workers’ holistic health. He cites long hours, low wages and stressful environments as concerns business leaders need to keep in mind when considering employees’ health.
Companies in every industry need to increasingly look at the health of both the business as well as employees, and leaders with clinical experience can help. Clinicians who have cared for patients, and have business acumen, can apply their experiences to help companies perform better.
There are hundreds of thousands of clinicians who operate in stressful environments every day in our health system. Professionals training in the healthcare system regularly face situations with life-or-death consequences. These stressful conditions and years of training help prepare them for anything, including business leadership.
Since the early 1700s, the role of chief medical officers in organizations has evolved (PDF). In some cases spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, companies inside and outside of healthcare such as Google, Tyson Foods, Pepsi, Delta, Uber, the NFL and more have hired CMOs to guide their organization’s health initiatives and prioritize employee well-being.
Furthermore, digital health founders have stated that “CMOs are the true unicorns.” However, the skills and contributions clinicians can bring to companies are not confined to medicine, and clinicians should be considered for leadership roles across all businesses. A clinician’s training is grounded in leveraging data and science to manage patients.
This unique training results in a qualitative and quantitative skill set that enables clinicians to balance empathy with strategic outcomes to drive continuous improvement.
These traits enable clinicians to become leaders not just in healthcare businesses, but in all corporations. Depending on the type of business and context of their role, clinicians can serve as catalysts who help businesses achieve desired growth, strategists who define the mission and path forward for an organization, stewards who provide clinical guidelines and policies for a company or operators who oversee complex processes and ensure they lead to the best outcomes.
The skills and values of clinicians in business
Clinical professionals work across many disciplines and bring sharpened analytical skills, leadership acumen and an ability to think quickly amid crisis—three qualities for success in any role, company or industry. These professionals can also help companies think about how they can create a culture of health, a framework developed by John Quelch while at the Harvard Business School that focuses on how all businesses can positively influence four pillars: consumer health, community health, employee health and environmental health.
Clinicians bring four unique values to their roles to address the evolving expectations of a company’s impact on our people and world:
1. TRUST BROKER: A trusted and unwavering commitment to a community
People want to interact with businesses they trust to positively impact their lives and the communities around them—88% of consumers say they believe trust in business becomes important in times of change. Recent data also find that at least 7 in 10 Americans trust doctors, nurses and pharmacists to do what is right for them and their families either most or all of the time. This trust can translate even into businesses that do not directly care for patients.
Hiring clinicians can demonstrate a company’s commitment to serving the community around them—and actually help those companies do right by their communities.
2. SERVANT LEADER: A focus on the people they serve
Clinicians are trained to observe and listen to each unique individual and develop personalized approaches to meet their needs. This focused listening allows them to understand the patient’s needs and is a well-honed clinical skill. Teams across industries need talent that can innovate to address both individual and population pain points. Clinicians can use their training to listen, assess and think critically about how patient or customer experience and wellness intersect through products or business solutions that directly support the needs of the communities they serve.
3. WORKFORCE HEALTH: A unique skill set to address workplace and employee health
With nearly half (49%) of Americans receiving health coverage through their employer, employee health and wellness has long been under the purview of corporate human resources departments. However, the COVID-19 pandemic made employee health an enterprisewide imperative, requiring companies across industries to rethink their role and responsibility in engendering colleague well-being.
Health-savvy CEOs realized that health decisions and policies can affect numerous aspects of an organization regardless of industry. These same CEOs are looking to equip their teams with the right people in senior leadership positions to make a new level of decisions through this lens. This is where clinicians can provide unique value, identifying and anticipating diverse population health gaps and creating needed solutions.
Clinician leaders are well prepared to help businesses establish medical policies and guidelines that keep employees safe while also meeting a company’s operational needs.
4. COMMUNITY and ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH: A focus on corporate sustainability and ESG
Finally, clinicians bring a unique perspective to the increasingly urgent issues of sustainability and the environment. Clinicians’ day-to-day work in a healthcare setting focuses on three types of prevention for patients: primary, keeping the condition from arising in the first place; secondary, identifying, reversing or treating a condition early before it gets worse; and tertiary, managing a chronic condition in a way that is focused on quality of life. Their focus on treating and preventing medical conditions allows clinicians to see how everyday decisions and factors—from inequities in services where they live to lifestyle and health choices—impact lives for years and decades to come.
Clinicians are therefore able to focus on the treatment today while also looking to long-term, collective impacts on health. Nine in 10 executives believe sustainability is important, but only 60% of organizations actually have a sustainability strategy.
In a business setting, this clinical expertise around prevention enables clinicians to serve as key strategists who consider the short-term implications of business decisions alongside the long-term gains or hurdles that may arise as a result. This is particularly important today as many companies are setting various environmental and social goals to improve their stamp on society and on the planet. Clinicians provide the type of vision needed to achieve long-term business and sustainability goals, while also ensuring that daily operations and tasks are being carried out diligently.
Adding clinician executives to your talent search
Between 2019 and 2020, 29,800 physicians left independent practice to become employees of corporate entities, according to a Physicians Advocacy Institute report. While clinicians played a key role in helping companies to stay safe during the pandemic and then how to safely return to the office, their value extends far beyond the challenges of COVID-19.
The “health” of a company is more than the traditional sense of the word, and includes the business growth, community connection, employee well-being, community connection, and the company’s impact on the world.
Clinicians are “trust brokers” and “servant leaders” that look at business health in a unique way. Companies that want to meet their goals and commitments should seriously consider searching for talent that can lead by leveraging these unique skills--and begin their search at the doctor’s office.
Kyu Rhee, M.D., is the former CMO of CVS Health. Ken Abrams, M.D., is chief medical officer at Deloitte. Shamiram Feinglass, M.D., is the former CMO at Danaher and Beckman Coulter.