How to choose a strategy has never been as important, or as unclear, in medicine as it is today. Health care executives have had a long history in medical care delivery with their competent administration of the center of the delivery system for the last fifty years, the hospital. They have since branched out in the newer forms of ancillary services, even including the insurance carriers that were once simply passive, claims-paying entities. These executives are now being called on to make assessments of far more than their institution's immediate environment and strategy. Their decisions will sometimes determine whether these facilities live or die.
Physician executives are new to the playing field.
In the decades before World War II, most hospitals were led by physicians. They were replaced by professional hospital administrators, the predecessors of health care executives. With their retreat from that role, doctors turned their attention to the business of running a private practice. Only in the last ten years have physicians returned in force to the administrative side. This time they are often equipped with advanced training in business and medical administration.