The Healthcare Executive's Responsibility For Professionalism (2024)

Approved by the Board of Governors Dec. 5, 2022.

Statement of the Issue

The healthcare executive’s responsibility for professionalism begins with a strong sense of service to others and a commitment to improving health. Professionalism includes the ability to align personal and organizational conduct with professional and ethical standards that include a responsibility to the patient and community, a service orientation, and a commitment to lifelong learning and improvement.¹

Healthcare executives are responsible for demonstrating the profession’s guiding principles both personally and within their organizations. This includes embodying the characteristics of honor, integrity and ethics, and developing and practicing a program of self-improvement and lifelong learning. Healthcare leaders must develop and promote a culture of professionalism within their organizations by creating an environment in which all workers can do their best, and by partnering with other organizations, state and local government, and the communities they serve to improve the health of the community.

Policy Position

The American College of Healthcare Executives believes that all healthcare executives must exhibit and promote professionalism in managing themselves, leading others, and contributing to and developing professional practices and standards in their organizations. The principles that apply to all healthcare executives include leading with integrity; committing to quality of care and patient safety; motivating themselves and others to do the right thing; collaborating with others both in and outside their organization; building a culture of trust; and engaging in internal and external activities to improve the health of the community.

Healthcare executives can promote professionalism in their organizations and communities through the following actions:

• Committing to quality of care, patient safety and continuous improvement toward the highest possible reliability.
• Taking responsibility for patients and families, employees and the organization.
• Building a culture of trust, respect and collaboration within their own organizations as well as other organizations.
• Actively engaging in collaborative activities with public health and other governmental agencies, healthcare systems and organizations, schools, and other community leaders to advance the health of the community.¹
• Giving back to the community through participation and development.
• Ensuring a culture of equity and inclusivity that seeks to prevent discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age and disability, and actively striving to increase diversity within the healthcare leadership ranks, especially in regard to race and ethnic background, as appropriate for the community and population being served.

Healthcare executives can personally demonstrate their commitment to professionalism by demonstrating:

• Honesty, integrity and trust
• Empathy, compassion and respect for all others.
• A commitment to excellence, self-improvement and lifelong learning.
• A willingness to give back to the profession by contributing to the professional body of knowledge, and by mentoring and coaching others.
• An understanding of and following the ACHE Code of Ethics, and an understanding of other professional codes of conduct, such as for the clinical and allied health professions.

ACHE urges all healthcare executives to affirm their personal responsibility to professionalism for themselves, their organizations and the communities they serve. To further strengthen its position on professionalism, ACHE requires all members to agree to abide by the ACHE Code of Ethics and to demonstrate an understanding of and a commitment to professionalism to advance to Fellow status within ACHE.

Notes:

¹ACHE Policy Statement: “Healthcare Executives’ Responsibility to Their Communities.”

Policy created: November 2017
Last revised: December 2022