Paving the Way for a Career in High Value Care: A Roadmap for Future Clinician Leaders

The healthcare cost crisis in the USA has become unsustainable, with patients facing rising premiums and deductibles and providers unable to meet their bottom lines, forcing practice mergers and buyouts that further exacerbate gaps in care access. Promoting high value care has been a stated priority of health systems for nearly two decades, but practical implementation within a largely fee-for-service system has remained limited. Practicing clinicians must be at the forefront of health system transformation in order to promote value, but medical trainees and early career physicians-who have an increasing interest and knowledge in high value care-often lack a structured career path to lead change in this space. Trainees and early career faculty would benefit from practical and concrete guidance throughout their training to ensure they can sustain their passion and leadership in this space as they transition to faculty/independent practice. We outline four career pathways-Education, Care Delivery Research, Quality/Operations Leadership, and Commercial Innovation-that can help trainees translate early interest in high-value care into sustainable professional roles. Creating visible, supported pathways for these careers is essential if health systems hope to retain and empower the next generation of clinicians committed to advancing value.