Want to tackle your 2017 executive agenda? Start with variation.

Last month, our colleagues on the Health Care Advisory Board research team released the results of their Annual Health Care CEO Survey.

Respondents rated 26 issues on a scale of "A" to "F," with "A" representing the greatest interest in learning more from Advisory Board about the topic. Three of the top five issues for health system and hospital CEOs caught our eye:

• Innovative approaches to expense reduction (to which 57% assigned an "A" grade);
• Minimizing unwarranted clinical variation (54%); and
• Controlling avoidable utilization (49%).