Top 7 Healthcare CEO Interview Questions to Ask

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is the highest level executive member at a healthcare facility. They weigh the input of other C-suite members to make highly influential decisions for the direction and growth of an organization. With such an important role, asking the right CEO interview questions is essential for helping you select the best person to lead your workforce.

Creating a thorough job description is a great way to attract strong candidates who have the experience needed to lead a healthcare facility. However, you can really assess their commitment to upholding your organization’s mission during the interview. To help you with this process, we put together the top seven questions you should ask before you hire your next CEO.

7 Questions to Ask a CEO During Interview

As the leading face and voice of a healthcare organization, the CEO must be adept in a range of intricate skills, from inspiring their workforce to making informed decisions in pressing situations. These seven CEO interview questions can help you assess how your prospective candidates embody the traits of a strong leader.

1. How does your leadership style align with our facility’s mission and values?

If a candidate has gotten to this stage of the hiring process, it’s likely that they’ve already garnered experiences demonstrating their leadership skills. But beyond having strong skills on paper, running a healthcare facility requires the ability to uphold the organization’s mission and values surrounding quality patient care, including a commitment to preventing instances of fraud and other forms of malfeasance.

This question will help set the tone for the interview by allowing you to assess how much research a candidate has done about your organization’s overarching mission. Additionally, you can gauge how well their approach to leadership actually aligns with the values of your facility, such as its commitment to promoting a culture of safety.

2. Describe your process for integrating new healthcare trends into your strategic vision.

A CEO should remain adaptable to new healthcare trends or technologies that could enhance a facility’s operations. This question allows you to assess a candidate’s ability to keep up with industry trends and their flexibility in the always-evolving healthcare market. Additionally, you can gauge their ability to weigh the value of adopting new trends with the operational capacities of your facility.

3. If you were CEO, how would you weigh our financial goals with our patient care priorities?

Leading a healthcare facility requires the ability to weigh different priorities that may not always align. Finances and quality of care are two important, yet sometimes competing factors that help sustain a facility’s operations. If you’re wondering what strategic questions to ask a CEO, this is a great option that can clue you into how a candidate approaches financial goal-setting without compromising your facility’s values.

4. With the healthcare industry continually facing staffing shortages, what measures would you take to improve hiring and retention at our facility?

One of the most common problems that healthcare facilities face is staffing shortages. A prospective candidate should be able to recognize this as a primary challenge that they will likely have to work on addressing as CEO. This question allows you to gauge their familiarity with the state of the healthcare industry and clues you into how they approach problem solving in the broader context.

5. What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced when working with other healthcare leaders and how did you overcome it?

Being at the top of the ladder, a CEO will likely have to face many people-related conflicts or issues that they must be comfortable handling. This is one of the best CEO interview questions that invites a candidate to share real-world experiences that showcase their people skills. Their answer also allows you to get a sense of their ability to lead a team, even in difficult situations.

6. What types of healthcare partnerships would you foster to enhance our facility’s strategic operations?

One important role of the CEO is to forge strategic partnerships that can support a facility’s capacity to deliver quality care. It’s important to assess how familiar a candidate is with the types of operations at your facility and what partnerships might benefit them most. This question also introduces their strategic approach to making meaningful networking decisions that are tailored to the needs of your facility.

7. What steps would you take to improve our organizational culture?

A strong company culture is essential to supporting a healthy workforce, keeping patients satisfied, and fostering a positive reputation. As a recognizable face, the CEO plays an important role in not only embodying company culture, but also making strides to improve it. This question allows you to assess how much value a candidate places in getting to know your culture and improving it within their strategic vision.

We Help Facilities and Staff Build a Healthier Workforce

Whether you’re a facility leader drafting CEO interview questions or a professional hoping to have one of the best CEO interviews, IntelyCare is here to help. Connect with us today to learn how our comprehensive staffing strategies can bridge the needs of healthcare facilities and staff to create a stronger workforce.