Strategic directions within health care institutions: the role of the physician.

The nature of the strategic problem faced by health care institutions is identified. Physicians are urged to be involved in the strategic decision-making process and are offered several alternative roles that they might play in strategy development. A set of conceptual frameworks from the generic management decision-making literature is used to organize the analysis in addition to the literature of health care management. This combination affords a different perspective into the nature of the problems and new insights into these critical issues.