Case Study: Cone Health Improves Patient Satisfaction with the Center for Creative Leadership’s Physician Leadership Academy

Cone Health boosts physician leadership 15.2% with Center for Creative Leadership

Cone Health, a large nonprofit hospital system in North Carolina, partnered with the Center for Creative Leadership to address the challenge of engaging its independent-minded physicians and training them to be collaborative, strategic leaders. Physicians are de facto leaders but receive little formal management training, and Cone Health needed a way to tap into this potential to drive organizational transformation and improve patient outcomes.

The Center for Creative Leadership developed a customized solution: the Physician Leadership Academy (PLA), an 11-month program focused on key leadership competencies. The program incorporated assessments, executive coaching, teamwork, and action learning projects. Results were significant, with participants improving an average of 15.2% on critical competencies according to their peers and supervisors. Patient satisfaction scores for PLA graduates increased by 9.2 points, vastly outperforming their peers. Furthermore, 67% of graduates took on formal or informal leadership roles, providing Cone Health with a strong pipeline of physician leaders to help transform healthcare.

Cone Health