There is an immense need for effective leadership in healthcare. The global pandemic particularly highlighted the need for innovative healthcare leaders who are proactive in their approach and can meet the ever evolving requirements of the industry. As pointed out by Regina Temple, challenges like healthcare accessibility and affordability also underline the need for effective and forward-thinking leaders.
Regina Temple talks about the need for effective leadership in healthcare
Leadership is commonly defined as the ability to manage a team in an efficient manner. If a healthcare team is unfocused or uncoordinated, it is the patients who often pay the price. Good leaders put others first, as well as help in boosting productivity and communication at a healthcare facility. These abilities are extremely important for the healthcare industry as it often requires a rapid response to issues that arise.
It is vital to gauge that healthcare leadership is way more than handling a team and maintaining the status quo. Rather, it also puts emphasis on identifying challenges in the system and exploring solutions to those problems. In the contemporary environment, healthcare leadership is taking an active role in the direction of this industry. Proper leadership in healthcare would include overseeing the staff, managing the facility, dealing with insurance and so on. Leaders in the industry should strive to guide healthcare in the direction that they feel it should go in the future. They are more likely to deliver more positive customer service, which fuels improved reputation and credibility. Healthcare facilities that focus on employee satisfaction and adequately invest in their team are more likely to attract high-quality talent, lower turnover rates, and retain their staff. Satisfied employees are likely to be highly engaged in their work, and have a positive influence on the culture of their organization
Good leaders have a good understanding of the goal of a hospital, which generally is to reach the potential of quality care and safety. As the leaders understand the shared purpose of a healthcare facility, collaboration among the team members becomes pretty easy to help achieve organizational goals. Managers have to focus on becoming good leaders, for an intuition to deliver satisfactory health services. Refined communication capabilities and achievable visions must be present in a leader so that they can competently implement useful strategies within the healthcare organization.
As per Regina Temple, effective leadership also has an instrumental role in enabling the acceptance of diversity among the healthcare workers. Employees from varying backgrounds feel a sense of recognition and acceptance, when their leaders provide them with the needed support and respect their differences. Good leadership also facilitates creative thinking and the development of new concepts that paves the way for a better hospital culture. cynical and exhausted, which ultimately leads to low morale and dissatisfaction. The management team at hospitals must address these issues at once, as success in healthcare facilities starts with a satisfied workforce
In the traditional healthcare leadership models, the ones at the top of the hierarchy made decisions with little to no input from other healthcare staff. The high-level administrators, doctors and other executives did not take into account the insights of nurses, front-desk administrators, and others who work with patients more often and for a longer span of time. However, today, healthcare leaders understand the importance of bringing stakeholders from all domains of a healthcare organization into conversation. These healthcare leaders have:
- More data to manage
- More complicated hospital billing services to handle
- Less time to deliberate about large-reaching policy decisions that impact the healthcare facilities
- New technologies and tools to learn and train their staff how to use
Broadly speaking, the modern healthcare industry especially has a need for leaders who are looking to the future of healthcare and how to improve it.
