The Central Argument
Discuss about the Clinical Leadership and Hospital Performance.
At present there is a widespread recognition that the effective leadership by the healthcare professionals in imperative under the modern healthcare settings. The principal factor underpinning this concept is the drive to uplift the overall quality of care and patient level of satisfactions (Kumar 2013). According to Al-Sawai (2013), leadership is behaviour of an individual which is directed to acstivities of a group which has shared goals. The principal aspect of the leadership style in the healthcare research and service is dynamic process which influence group activities and coping with the change in the process of service procurement. The following assignment is based on the critical analysis of a supplementary research paper published by McGrath et al. 2008 in the domain of proper implementation and sustaining transformation change in the health care domain. The critique of the article is mainly based on central argument of the research paper and the conclusion drawn from that argument.
The central argument of the author’s topic is based on the increase in the level of stress in the public health care sectors and subsequent interventions in management the stress level via the redesigning the methods of service procurement and successful implementation of the change process in order to achieve better health outcome both from the perspective of the service users and service uses (McGrath et al. 2008). Thus the main theme is of the research which was helped the author to erect a framework of practice is the increase in the level of stress among the healthcare professionals (McGrath et al. 2008). According to the research reports published by Burton et al. (2016), workplace stress is high among the health care professionals and the main reason behind this is increased working hours, poor patient: staffs ratios, lack of proper remuneration and acknowledgements and compassion fatigue. Burton et al. (2016) is of the opinion that this increase in the level of stress among the healthcare workers leads to decreased psychological health among the healthcare professionals and this again leads to decrease in the overall quality of care and patient satisfaction. The findings published by van Mol et al. (2015) also indicated that working under the stressful environment like in the intensive care unit is emotionally challenging for the healthcare professionals. This emotionally draining work type creates increased level of job related stress along with compassion fatigue which decreases the overall quality of care. Moreover, the increase in the level of stress also increases the employee turnover in the healthcare domain which further decreases the staff: patient ratio and thereby increase the level of stress over the existing professionals further.
Job-related Stress among Healthcare Professionals
Thus the main pillar (job related stress among healthcare professionals) of this research holds prominent significance in the healthcare domains as the same statement has been supported by various research articles.
The conclusion cited by McGrath et al. (2008) highlighted that in order to comprehensively implement the redesign in the procurement of the healthcare service in a sustainable way proper leadership management needs to be undertaken and this include application of clinical leadership, team-based problem solving skills, setting ambitious target, strong performance management tools, standard maintenance of process improvement and access of the data in order to track the level of success.
The overall conclusion of the paper is clearly stated with each proposed intervention is succinctly highlighted in separate paragraph and is simultaneously backed by authentic and relevant resources. However, not all the evidences used to back the conclusion of the research paper are relevant in present day scenario. For example, in the domain of the importance of the leadership by the senior management and the chief executive officer, McGrath et al. (2008) mainly highlighted the reference from the book of Kotter (1996). Now citing references, which are more than 10 years old, decreases the overall authentication of the research results. Furthermore, Fitzgerald et al. (2012) is of the opinion that the apart from the involvement of the senior leaders, distributed leadership styles among both the senior and the junior leaders help to achieve the improved outcomes in the healthcare domains.
The article however has certain gaps in its argument. The overall information stated in the research articles lay out a descriptive style of writing with lack of significant critique or the process in which the data was gathered. The lessons which are learnt from the clinical process of redesign is illustrated in a descriptive manner. According to LoBiondo-Wood et al. (2013), lack of significant critique from the different author of the previous studies decrease the strength and the validity of the overall research.
From information reported by McGrath et al. (2008) lead to the elucidation of the fact that it is the duty of the senior management of the healthcare organisation to set proper standards for the service delivery process and thereby driving the overall change. Apart from the senior management in the administrative department in healthcare it is also the duty of the clinical leaders that is the doctors to take active role in implementing the change in the clinical practice. Moreover, engagement of the clinical leaders help in gaining trust from the staffs as staffs are satisfied when they visualise that their solutions are being implemented. The paper also highlighted that both the internal and the external management of change is important under the context of the NSW healthcare and this internal and external initiatives help to increase the organisational readiness to garland the new change in the overall service delivery process. This change in the clinical design, under the context of the service procurement helps to increase the overall sustainability and standard work in the health care system.
Importance of Clinical and Distributed Leadership
The main implication of the healthcare leadership and management as highlight in this paper is persistence and flexibility in the care delivery. Implementation of the redesign is crucial for the organisational success. When this redesign in clinical care module is done under proper leadership, it helped to increase the sustainability ongoing improvement process. Maintenance of the sustainability further increases the flexibility of the healthcare service delivery while creating provision for the further improvement. Importance of clinical leadership in change implementation in the service delivery also helps in the maintenance of the improved standard work. This again promotes overall sustainability of the research process. McGrath et al. (2008) also recommended that the process owner of the change implementation in the must spend significant amount of time in the workplace in order to monitor the overall change process while identifying proper opportunities for further improvements.
These implications of the health leadership and management as identified by the McGrath et al. (2008) also hold significance in the present healthcare design as well. The research conducted by Sarto and Veronesi (2016) highlighted that the clinical leadership in the healthcare management helps to increase the overall effectiveness of the healthcare organizations. The analysis of the review of literature conducted by Sarto and Veronesi (2016) syncs with the research findings of McGrath et al. (2008). Sarto and Veronesi (2016) highlighted that the main implications of the clinical leadership in healthcare management is improved quality or care and increase in the social performance of the service providers. Sarto and Veronesi (2016) further highlighted a different aspect of the healthcare management that is, proper use of the clinical leadership help in proper management of the financial and operational resources.
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that though the research conducted by McGrath et al. (2008) highlighted the importance of the clinical leadership towards implementing change in the procurement of the service delivery in healthcare in order to increase the sustainable improvement in the quality of care. Moreover, the article also stated that this change in the overall mode of the service delivery helps to reduce the level of stress among the healthcare professionals and this again help in improve the quality outcome of the patient care. However, the article to has certain limitation in laying out the arguments like lack of improper citation of data and lack of critical analysis of the elucidated data from relevant or recently published journal articles.
References
Al-Sawai, Abdulaziz. 2013. “Leadership of healthcare professionals: where do we stand?.” Oman medical journal 28, no. 4: 285. doi: 10.5001/omj.2013.79
Burton, Amy, Catherine Burgess, Sarah Dean, Gina Z. Koutsopoulou, and Siobhan Hugh?Jones. 2016. “How effective are mindfulness?based interventions for reducing stress among healthcare professionals? A systematic review and meta?analysis.” Stress and Health 33, no. 1 (2017): 3-13. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2673
Fitzgerald, Louise, Ewan Ferlie, Gerry McGivern, and David Buchanan. 2012. “Distributed leadership patterns and service improvement: Evidence and argument from English healthcare.” The Leadership Quarterly 24, no. 1 (2013): 227-239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2012.10.012
Kotter, John P. 1996. “Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail.” Harvard Business School Press
Kumar, Robin DC. 2013. “Leadership in healthcare.” Anaesthesia & Intensive Care Medicine 14, no. 1: 39-41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mpaic.2012.11.006
LoBiondo-Wood, Geri, Judith Haber, Carey Berry, and Jennifer Yost. 2013. Study Guide for Nursing Research-E-Book: Methods and Critical Appraisal for Evidence-Based Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences.
McGrath, Katherine M., Denise M. Bennett, David I. Ben-Tovim, Steven C. Boyages, Nigel J. Lyons, and Tony J. O’Connell. 2008. “Implementing and sustaining transformational change in health care: lessons learnt about clinical process redesign.” Medical Journal of Australia 188, no. 6: S32.
Sarto, F., and G. Veronesi. 2016. “Clinical leadership and hospital performance: assessing the evidence base.” BMC health services research 16, no. 2: 169. doi: 10.1186/s12913-016-1395-5
van Mol, Margo MC, Erwin JO Kompanje, Dominique D. Benoit, Jan Bakker, and Marjan D. Nijkamp. 2015. “The prevalence of compassion fatigue and burnout among healthcare professionals in intensive care units: a systematic review.” PloS one 10, no. 8 (2015): e0136955. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136955
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