Houston Methodist polishes ‘Diamond Leadership’ model – Becker’s Hospital Review | Healthcare News
Through a new “Diamond Leadership” model, Houston Methodist aims to standardize its executive structure and create a single definition of quality across the organization.
The crown of the “diamond” is an assembly of each hospital’s CEO, chief nursing officer, chief quality officer and quality director. Each role is its own facet, and at the center of the diamond is the patient, according to Shlomit Schaal, MD, PhD.
Dr. Schaal, Houston Methodist’s chief physician executive, told Becker’s the leadership structure is intended to standardize quality, innovation and expectations.
“All of this was really uncharted territory. It evolved with time,” said Dr. Schaal, who is also president and CEO of the Houston Methodist Physician Organization. “When I started my role, … it was about time to say, ‘We can standardize this.’ We can really clarify all the roles, not only the CQO role, but also the CNO role in the entity, the quality director role and the CEO role, as it pertains to quality and patient safety.”
After joining Houston Methodist in April 2023, Dr. Schaal said she found a lack of communication and collaboration across the system. Nothing was broken, she said, but improvement was possible. By early 2024, the Diamond Leadership model was in place.
The leadership structure arranges opportunities for a specific hospital’s CEO, CNO, CQO and quality director to connect. It also creates communities for every Houston Methodist hospital CEO to convene, as well as parallel gathering options for the CNOs, CQOs and quality directors.
“The patient is the center of everything that we do, and this actually radiates towards our entire community,” Dr. Schaal said. “But that expectation and that clarification of roles — what does everybody do? — and how do we learn from each other and collaborate is really what prompted this change.
“The diamond symbolizes clarity and strength and brilliance, and so we call it the diamond structure.”
Through the Diamond Leadership structure, Houston Methodist has more than 20 collaboration opportunities booked on its quality and patient safety calendar in each quarter, Dr. Schaal said.
“Because we are so big — we have 33,000 employees — how would you know what’s happening in The Woodlands? How would you know what’s happening in Sugar Land?” Dr. Schaal said, adding that these events are often in person to foster stronger connections.
Houston Methodist operates nine hospitals and almost 300 clinics, according to its website. Dr. Schaal said the goal of the Diamond Leadership structure is to connect all locations into “One Houston Methodist.”