In health care, the term “excellence” often surfaces in mission statements and promotional materials—but what does it genuinely mean? In a sector where human lives, dignity and trust are at stake, the notion of excellence must go far beyond clichés or superficial standards.
Excellence is not about unattainable perfection, nor is it a product of clever branding. It is a living principle, rooted in the continuous pursuit of better care, deeper understanding and meaningful outcomes. Above all, excellence is an ethic—a commitment to integrity, mastery and compassion.
At its foundation, true health care excellence is inseparable from the concept of value. Not value in a purely financial sense, but value defined by the impact of care on a person’s health, well-being and experience. A health care system that excels does not measure its worth by the number of procedures completed or the volume of patients seen. Instead, it seeks to understand: Did the care improve lives? Did it alleviate suffering? Did it empower people to live healthier, fuller lives?
Getty Images
This is the central promise of value-based care—an approach that aligns clinical interventions with patient outcomes, resource stewardship and long-term sustainability. In this framework, success is not about doing more, but about achieving more with what is done. It challenges us to prioritize what truly matters to patients, not just what is easy to measure.
Excellence also depends on clinical expertise and mastery across all professions—from physicians and nurses to allied health professionals and support staff. Yet, individual brilliance means little without collaboration. Health care is a collective endeavor, where the quality of the whole depends on the strength of the team and the systems that support them.
Innovation plays a vital role here—not just technological innovation, but the innovation of care models, organizational design and leadership. While new technologies like artificial intelligence and precision medicine offer exciting possibilities, their transformative power will remain unrealized without the infrastructure, data systems and ethical frameworks to guide them responsibly.
Too often, health systems operate with outdated, fragmented data systems that inhibit coordination, limit research and frustrate both professionals and patients. Without interoperable, secure and patient-centered data ecosystems, even the most advanced tools will falter. Building these foundations is a precondition for any serious pursuit of excellence.
Getty Images
But structural innovation alone is insufficient. Cultures of safety, transparency and continuous learning are nonnegotiable. When professionals fear blame more than they seek improvement, excellence withers. Leadership must foster environments where feedback is welcomed, errors become opportunities to learn and success is shared.
Ultimately, excellence in health care is not imposed from above. It emerges when frontline professionals are trusted and supported, when policies respect complexity rather than imposing simplistic targets and when systems are designed not just for efficiency, but for meaning and value.
Excellence is not an abstract ideal—it is the daily, often quiet, practice of putting patients first, of asking not “how much did we do?” but “how much better did we make things?” In a time when health care systems around the world are under strain—financially, technologically and morally—refocusing on value is not just a strategy. It is a necessity.
If health care systems wish to be worthy of the trust placed in them, they must redefine excellence around the principle of value—where every policy, investment and clinical choice is driven by the pursuit of better outcomes, better experiences and wiser use of resources. This is the path not just to sustainability, but to the kind of care that truly honors the people it serves.
Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg is a member of the Newsweek CEO Circle, an invite-only executive community of subscribers.
