Hospital performance and physician leadership: New evidence from Iran – BMJ Leader

Purpose: There is growing interest in the potential need for clinical involvement in leadership and management of hospitals. Most studies of clinical leadership use US and European data. This paper contributes the first evidence for the country of Iran. It examines three different forms of hospital system: public, private and social security organisation, and these include teaching and non-teaching hospitals. This study adds to a small but growing literature that examines the possible value of ‘expert’ clinical leaders. Method: This study uses data from 72 general hospitals in the city of Tehran. The data were collected for years 2015 and 2016. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used in this study to assess hospital performance. Hospitals’ chief operating officers are divided into two groups: clinicians (the majority of whom are physicians) and non-medically trained managers. Findings: The average performance scores for hospitals with clinical managers and non-clinically trained managers are equal to 96.68±5.50 and 89.78±7.20 respectively