Leadership and Innovation in Healthcare

Leadership and Innovation
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1.Introduction:
In this essay, planned change in the hospital would be discussed. Planned change is updating
information to the patients within one hour of admission to the ward. Implementation of this
change is necessary in the ward because it is helpful in improving overall patient satisfaction
and providing quality care to the patients. In this essay, suitable leadership theory which is
necessary for implementing change would be discussed. Role of innovation and influence of
environmental factors on implementing change also would be discussed. Change can be
implemented through validated policies and procedures. Hence, specific change theories
would be assessed for implementing planned change in the hospital. Nurse should not only be
well versed with the nursing skills but also be aware of other skills like communication skills,
leadership skills, interpersonal skills and innovative thinking skills.
2. Discussion
2a. Leadership:
Leadership is important aspect to implement proposed change in the healthcare sector
because leaders can bring together different professionals and departments to work together
to bring change. It is important to bring these stakeholders together because different
stakeholders might have different ideas to implement proposed change. Leaders are capable
to understand changes and are sensitive to the needs and requirements of the different
professionals working in the healthcare sector. Leaders are capable to monitor and regulate
the change because excessive change can be exhaustive to the workers and organisation
(Lega, Prenestini, and Rosso, 2017). Leaders can change mindset of workers to adapt to
change in the healthcare sector. Leaders can effectively switch healthcare services to value
based to volume based and can bring wider changes in the organisation. Idea of change can
produce nervousness in the workers; hence, leaders can show effective path to achieve big
goal (Nelson-Brantley and Ford, 2017).
Transformational leadership theory:
Transformational leadership theory is widely accepted and supported leadership theory for
the healthcare sector. This theory states that more than one individual involve in such a
manner that both leaders and subordinates promote each other to the advanced stage of
motivation and morality. According to the transformational leadership theory, leaders
promote excelling in self-interests of their sub-ordinates, raising their requirement for the
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organisation and make them realise their responsibility of larger organisational goal. It is
useful in bringing change like providing information to the patients within one hour of
admission. For bringing this type change, healthcare workers those who works very closely
with patients need to provide information to the patients. It is useful in the overall
development of the total workforce in the organisation which is necessary to bring change in
the organisation (Vaismoradi, Griffiths, Turunen, and Jordan, 2016). Transformational
leaders possess certain special traits. These traits include vision, self-confidence and self-
awareness which are useful in developing multidisciplinary team necessary to bring change in
the healthcare organisation. For providing information to the patients within first hour,
multidisciplinary team need to work in integrated manner. Transformational leaders provide
opportunity to the subordinates to exercise leadership which would be helpful in improving
confidence of the subordinates to achieve aim of bringing change in the healthcare
organisation. Transformational leadership is considered as catalyst for bringing new and
innovative model in the healthcare organisation which indicates usefulness of this theory in
bringing change (Liukka, Hupli, and Turunen, 2018).
Collaboration, interpersonal skills and personal contacts are the prominent traits of
transformation leadership which are necessary for communication to the patients in the first
hour of admission to the hospital. Transformational leadership is also helpful for subordinates
for developing new ideas and improving aspirations for improvement and bringing change in
the healthcare organisation. Despite having all the beneficial qualities for bringing change in
the organisation, transformational theory is associated with certain drawbacks.
Transformational theory alone in the long run can be harmful to the organisation. It has also
been proved that transformational leaders might fail without traditional management skills. It
is highly possible that without specific plan and vision; transformational leaders would fail in
bringing change in the organisation (Fischer, 2016).
Transactional leadership theory:
Transactional leadership theory is built on the exercising leadership due to management
position according to the organisational hierarchy. According to this theory, leaders identify
needs of the subordinates and transact with them. This theory has social aspect which is based
on the power and reward system. This theory is useful in achieving goal of the organisation
through providing better healthcare services to the patients. Providing information to the
patients within first hour of admission would be helpful in providing relevant intervention
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and quality care to the patients. Transactional leaders play their leadership roles by
maintaining equilibrium and harmony through following policies and procedures (Smith,
2015). It would be helpful in the improving loyalty and performance of the subordinates.
Hence, these leaders can totally depend on subordinate nurses for providing useful
information to the patients. Moreover, subordinate nurses follow necessary procedures and
policies for providing necessary information to the patients. Transactional leaders give away
performance-based rewards to the subordinates. Subordinates should have proper direction
and behaviour for bringing change in the healthcare organisation which can be effectively
provided by the transactional leaders. Though, this theory is useful in bringing change in the
healthcare organisation; it has been stated that this theory lacks vision. Hence, this leadership
theory along with transformational theory needs to be implemented in the organisation for
bringing effective change to provide required information to the patients within one hour of
admission to the hospital. Moreover, it has also been stated that transactional theory has
narrow focus and most of the organisational activities are based on the self interest of the
leader. However, these drawbacks of this theory can be effectively managed based on the
individual traits of the leader (Saravo, Netzel, and Kiesewetter, 2017; Xenikou, 2017).
Change in the healthcare organisation can be effectively brought by working in the hierarchy
environment. Leaders need to develop and implement effective hierarchical model to train the
nurses in middle management related to change in the healthcare organisation. All the clinical
information which is necessary to pass on to the bedside nurses should be given by the nurses
in the middle level. Nurse in the middle level should act as connecting link between the
leaders and nurses at the bedside need to provide relevant information to the patients within
first hour of admission to the hospital. Moreover, leaders should ensure that all the clinical
information should be given to the patients. Leaders should discus among team members and
come to the consequence for deciding on which type of information should not be given to
the patients (Cope and Murray, 2017).
2b. Innovation in healthcare:
Innovation is related to bringing new ideas to the actual practice. Hence, nurse need to use
clinical judgment, expertise and experience to communicate with the patients to provide
relevant clinical information within first hour of admission to the hospital. Usually, it has
been considered that bringing innovation in the healthcare organisation is difficult. Changes
need to be made in the behaviours of healthcare workers including nurses and current medical
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