Plan for Emphasizing Scholar-Leadership among Healthcare Professionals
Summary
There is a dysfunction in communication between healthcare professionals and non-medical administrative decision-makers. This gap has been shown to have serious negative consequences for patient health outcome. It is herein proposed that emphasizing the scholar-leader role of healthcare professionals, doctors, nurses, and others at all levels, will alleviate much of this problem and restore healthcare organizations to patient-centered mindsets as opposed to the profit-centered mindset that has been the bane of healthcare professionals and patients alike for the last several decades. This emphasis will begin among healthcare professionals ourselves and then later expand to bring in non-medical administrative decision-makers so as to reunify the different aspects of healthcare organizational culture. I. Introduction
The purpose of this proposal is to demonstrate the need for scholar-leadership among healthcare
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Current Problems in Healthcare
There are several major factors that have led to the current situation and it has been developing for years. This has all contributed to negative patient health outcomes as well as lowering respect for medical scholar-leaders among healthcare administrators in terms of decision-making priorities.
a. The rise of the administrator in healthcare decision-making has been remarked on for decades (Gray, 1983). Such decisions affect staffing, scheduling, equipment purchases, hours of operation, and many other critical factors in healthcare long before a medical professional ever first meets their patients. Doing so from a dollars and cents perspective as opposed to a patient needs perspective, that is, administrative versus medical, has been shown to harm patient health outcomes. Ignoring these considerations or downplaying their effects has a history of countering the positive effects of evidence-based practice (Hajjaj, Salek, Basra, & Finlay,
Surprisingly health administrators are often accountable for fabrication fiscal decisions that can impinge both their health care association and the caliber of management communicate. Also, it can be extremely demanding to equalize strive requisition, and it sometimes pits low-cost, quality, and ethics against each other. For instance, administrators often must decide between employment more personnel to diminish nurse-to-patient ratios and purchasing or restore, recover equipage. Above all of these things could improve quality of care.
Why now? Why are we focusing on transformational leadership? Healthcare costs are continuing to rise. Some of the critical problems and active debates prevalent in many hospital organizations include the rapidly intensifying healthcare costs, funding and reimbursement cutbacks, and concern regarding the overall quality and safety of health care. “Healthcare systems have come under pressure to improve performance and manage productivity” (Botting, 2011). To be successful in the 21st century, there is a demand on healthcare systems to have a vision and executive and clinical leadership to inspire the change process and make the difference between success and failure in change.
Therefore my preference is to work from a leadership team format that allots voice to the variety of dedicated professionals and utilizes their strengths to achieve the organization’s goals. In the healthcare setting, leadership is perceived as the policy developers that work alongside the providers and other professional staff members to promote and enforce those policies. The facilities and the staff are seen as the specialized professionals charged with advising upon and carrying out the policies through the development of research based strategies that meet the needs of agreed upon policy directives. Servant leadership or distributed leadership of this type requires one to recognize the strengths’ in their colleagues during the decision-making process and support their development in areas that they may feel less than
This post is a brief summation of interviews with several healthcare experts within the Willis Towers Watson Company. Their statements and ideas were beneficial, thought provoking and relevant for those in healthcare leadership. Based on our conversations we underscore here a few trends for healthcare providers whether in a single community hospital, a teaching hospital or a group of hospitals: executive compensation should be incentivized, the hiring of doctors in executive positions for providers in the nonprofit and for profit sectors is recommended and growing, the collection of vast amounts of data can be compiled to influence executive behavior and positively impact performance, and poor quality indicators directly impact the bottom line in a multitude of ways.
Healthcare clinical workers have differing needs for supervision than administrative staff, this may be on account of clinical provider’s clinical knowledge and responsibilities that may not be shared by administrative leaders. The position of leaders to allow this autonomy is supported, Kerfoot (2003) states that poorly lead healthcare
Health care administrators have wide-ranging influence within the world of medicine. The leadership that these professionals provide sets the future course not only for the facilities they manage but also for the health care system as a whole.
Changes are the only constant that is happening in healthcare leadership. Leaders are motivated to transform their organization to be more patient centered amid the complexity of regulations and policies that our health care leaders encounter (Rice, February 13, 2016). Our healthcare industry caters to a very diverse culture and ethnicity, whether in the C-suite or management position, the clients that we have in the hospital setting or in our community. I work in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU); our leadership changed so much in the last two years. Nurses now are empowered to suggest changes on how we deliver and take care of our patients. Not only the physicians and management make the decision. Furthermore, we created a culture that everyone is involved and all parties give a better service to our patients and
Healthcare management that utilizes servant leadership, ethics and entrepreneurship presents a unique opportunity to provide the medical community with tangible and intangible benefits. “Servant leadership has its origin from religion; servant leaders stood no different to their followers, rather leaders served them back with emotional healing and empowering the followers to newer heights. (Khan, Khan & Chaudhry,2015, p.111).” I strongly believe that if you take care of the healthcare professionals you ultimately take care of the patients.
These responsibilities require clinical leadership competencies. 1,2 Because medical students are not provided formal training in clinical leadership3, these responsibilities can be new and unexpected for newly graduated physicians. Clinical leadership can be referred to as the ability of a physician to serve as both a manager and leader of diverse teams in pursuit of maximally effective patient care3. While the focus of managerial leadership lies on hierarchical superior–subordinate organizational relationships, clinical leadership has a collegiate orientation and a focus upon the patient or service interface.2 Studies have shown that effective clinical leadership improves outcomes of both patients and health care delivery organizations. This can be achieved by encouraging teamwork, facilitating the design and close monitoring of care processes, promoting a clinical culture that supports safe practices, and enabling innovation and continuous development of skills and outcomes.
Healthcare administrators have important impact in the world of medicine. They play a key role in shaping the future course for the both the general healthcare system and their respective facilities. The act of managing a healthcare facility can be compared to that of managing an entire city due to the dynamic environments in the two settings. Healthcare administrators serve in environments of specialized groups who have competing interests and both indirect and direct relationships with each other. Effective management of these facilities demands skills in tough decision-making. Additionally, the healthcare administrators ought to respect the values and choices of the diverse groups that they serve.
Healthcare is one of the largest growing fields with increasing demands every day. In the past, healthcare was thought to be a work force of doctors, nurses and other medical staff but it has evolved into a large industry with a need for managers and administration. This management and administration has brought a new skillset to the field that strongly interests me. I spent the first two years of my undergraduate education in pharmacy school but through my many job shadows I fell in love with the business side of the health industry. I became fascinated by healthcare administration because of the potential opportunities such as: the ability to combine my talents of leadership and organization with my passion of health; the capacity to analyze and predict future trends to help my organization stay ahead therefore becoming a leader in industry; and the capability to understand medical professionals and their skills to lead and direct them in ways that will create a super-team.
Healthcare leaders are no doubt evolving and adapting to new set of skills required to successfully lead an organization. They are for the most part faced with so many challeneges and variety of complex issues that often demand essential leadership skills and qualitites to keep and organization running and at the forfront of success esepcially in times of uncertainity. Thus, a great healthcare leader need to have a clear vision of the organizational mission and values as well as a strong abilities to lead other healthcare personnel in pursuit of the organizational values and a healthy envirionemt that promote caring, innovation an creativity in order to meet the needs of our patints' population and the community.
Physicians are not in the typical power positions according to the organizational chart, although they carry significant amounts of power in the organization. A physician can influence staff and community members easily. Physicians, by their status alone, are held in high regard and respected. Organizational leaders must achieve buy-in from those in high statuses to assist them with buy-in for the entire facility. Physicians and organizational leaders must work together to ensure the organization is successful, evidenced by the increased emphasis being placed on chief medical officers at the leadership table (Sonnenberg, 2015).
Healthcare changes occurring today along with shrinking budgets and reimbursement rates for hospitals has forced institution CEOs to do more with less. Changes and restructuring of various health facilities require nursing leaders with flexibility and adaptability. Nurse leaders must also consider budgetary constraints, cost effectiveness, patient safety, and quality care while maintaining focus on improved patient outcome. The responsibility of ensuring patients receive safe and high quality care belongs to every employee in the hospital, including support staff such as IV therapy. In this hospital, this led to the development of a nurse director position to oversee the
According to McConell (2012), the difference in a leader and a follower determines the success of a person regarding leadership. This chapter helps explain the content of qualities and proficiency for healthcare managers to be effective. Once again, effective management skills or certain qualifications enhance a healthcare organization environment. Healthcare managers and supervisors must have the capacity to handle challenges while the organization objectives and regulations may change over a period of time. Effective healthcare management governs the success of a healthcare organization. There are many different skill sets and leadership styles to be effective as a manager. People are interested in knowing what strategies are effective