Doctors make the best managers, study indicates

Hospitals run by doctors outperform those run by managers, indicates a study in Social Science and Medicine (doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.06.025).

Amanda Goodall, a senior research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labour in Bonn, looked at the top 100 US hospitals in three specialties—cancer, digestive disorders, and cardiovascular care and surgery—as ranked in 2009 by the well established US News and World Report league tables, which look at performance in 16 specialties. She then ascertained whether the hospitals’ chief executive officers were doctors or professional managers.

She found that …