title: Corporate culture: the missing piece of the healthcare puzzle.
abstract: The U.S. healthcare system requires radical, not incremental, change. Management issues in healthcare delivery are fundamentally different from those in the business world. Systems thinking forces a focus on corporate culture, about which there is little hard data. The use of cost/benefit analysis suffers from the lack of any accepted measure of long-term "benefit." The authors make four observations: (1) corporate culture is both part of the cause and part of the cure for healthcare; (2) long-term financial and functional measures are necessary to make evidence-based decisions; (3) valid, nationwide data must be developed regarding the corporate culture of medicine; and (4) direct (unmodified) application of management theory or practices will not achieve sustainable improvements.
mesh_terms: D003258:Consumer Behavior; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D006801:Humans; D015279:Organizational Culture; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D010558:Personnel Loyalty; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D014481:United States