Ilene MacDonald writes in FierceHealthcare that more effort should be made by hospitals and health systems to find internal candidates for the chief executive officer.

The chief operating officer’s office is a natural place to look.

“In many cases, organizations would be better off  {than doing an external search} identifying potential leaders within their organizations and creating a development plan for them. Ideally, the next leader will be more prepared and better situated than the previous CEO because he or she already learned the ropes from a predecessor,” she writes.