title: Implementing healthcare excellence: the vital role of the CEO in evidence-based design.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This paper explores the role of the chief executive officer (CEO) in evidence-based design (EBD), discussing the internal and external challenges that a CEO faces, such as demands for increased quality, safety, patient-and-family-centeredness, increased revenue, and reduced cost.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Based on a series of interviews and case studies and the experience of the authors as researchers, consultants, and CEOs, this paper provides a model for EBD and recommends actions that a CEO can undertake to create an effective project over the life cycle of a building. TOPICAL HEADINGS: Evidence-Based Design: A Performance-Based Approach to Achieving Key Goals; Key Approaches to Executing Evidence-Based Design; Overcoming Barriers to Innovation: The CEO's Vital Role in Implementing Evidence-Based Design
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The CEO bears special responsibility for successful facility project implementation. Only the CEO possesses the responsibility and authority to articulate the strategy, vision, goals, and resource constraints that frame every project. With the support of their boards, CEOs set the stage for the transformation of an organization's culture and fuel clinical and business process reengineering by encouraging and, if necessary, forcing collaboration between the strong disciplinary and departmental divisions found in healthcare systems.
authors.affiliation: College of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0155, USA. craig.zimring@coa.gatech.edu
authors.forename: Craig
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zimring
authors.forename: Godfried L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Augenbroe
authors.forename: Eileen B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Malone
authors.forename: Blair L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Sadler
mesh_terms: D000288:Administrative Personnel; D055317:Evidence-Based Practice; D006749:Hospital Design and Construction; D006801:Humans; D007857:Leadership; D015279:Organizational Culture; D024382:Professional Role; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D014481:United States