James Holland, president and CEO of Johns Hopkins Health Plans, joined Becker’s to discuss how integrating physician leadership is critical to driving value-based care, operational alignment and ASC strategy.
Question: What do physicians bring to leadership that others can’t?
Editor’s note: These responses were edited lightly for clarity and length.
James Holland: Johns Hopkins Health Plans, our close, day-to-day collaboration with physicians across the Johns Hopkins Health System and Johns Hopkins University underscores the critical role physician leadership plays in effective healthcare delivery — particularly within provider-sponsored health plans. Physicians help the enterprise understand what is clinically appropriate and anticipate how network physicians will experience and respond to health plan decisions. They bring a leadership perspective grounded in firsthand accountability for patient outcomes, informed by both clinical practice and academic rigor. That perspective is especially valuable when aligning care delivery with payment models designed to improve quality and affordability.
This physician-led perspective is particularly important in facilitating the appropriate use of ASCs and other site-of-care programs, where clinical efficiency, patient experience, and cost management must be tightly aligned. Physician leaders help bridge the traditional divide between payer and provider by translating clinical realities into practical, system-level strategies. Their credibility with frontline clinicians builds trust, accelerates adoption of value-based approaches and ensures that operational and financial decisions remain connected to patient care. When physician leadership is fully integrated with strong operational and administrative expertise, it strengthens collaboration between payers and providers while driving better outcomes for patients.
