Dyad Leadership in Healthcare: When One Plus One Is Greater Than Two

Healthcare leaders are facing major change in how healthcare is delivered as we move from fee-for-service payment models to pay for value. Physicians and hospitals are evolving from separate financial entities (with relationships varying from customers/workshops to competitors) to unified systems. Government policy maker, payers, and hordes of consultants advise hospitals to increase physician leadership in all parts of the system. However, few have proposed how this can be done when the gaps between hospitals and physicians are so wide. Physicians do not trust healthcare leaders, lack leadership and teamwork skills, and have little knowledge of how systems work. Some hospital leaders are working to overcome these gaps by setting up dyad leadership teams, consisting of a physician and an experienced manager/leader. The physician member of the team helps with the first gap; the nurse or other dyad partner is important to manage the other gaps. Until now, with the publication of Dyad Clinical Leadership, there has not been a source to help clinical dyad partners learn and understand how to work together in this emerging management model. Kathleen D. Sanford, DBA, RN, CENP, FACHE, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI), builds on CHI s success with this unique playbook for the model.