Cooperative coordination: a new style of health care administration

The numbers of salaried physicians, dentists, pharmacists, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants has made great recent increases. This has resulted in a much greater level of awareness of the delicate managerial relationship between administrators and professionals. This article outlines some of the inherent difficulties, emphasizing motivation, productivity, and quality assurance. Several management theories are discussed and the concept of "cooperative coordination" is introduced. Under this management style, administrators seek the most effective way to facilitate professionals' goals by joint policy making, participative decision making, joint goal setting, low task orientation, and high relationship orientation.