Leadership Training Program

Leadership Training Program

            The health care system is always changing, becoming more complex and diverse. This kind of environment needs to have a multi-talented leader that is able to evolve with the times so that they are able to effectively govern. This kind of leadership is able to be cultivated in the health care environment with back up and personnel development tools. Even though it is known that having strong leadership helps to enhance the quality of health care provided, there is still a lack of leadership in health care. A strong leader not only has to have their education, where they are trained in clinical and technical skills. They also need to have qualities that include being able to collaborate, adapt, have empathy and be able to develop change. So, to help achieve more efficient leadership in healthcare is to develop a training program for all staff that will hold any kind of leadership position.

Change Proposal

Lack of leadership in health care effects the quality of care that is provided to patients. The reason behind this is that effective leadership is a key factor in how an organization functions effectively and efficiently. Some of the challenges to having effective leadership in health care is the organizational structure, human resources, work nature, leaders and regulations. All of these challenges are different from each other but are also connected and need a leader that is able to understand and able to analyze complex challenges (Ghiasipour, Mosadeghrad, Arab, & Jaafaripooyan, 2017). Some other traits that add to a leader being ineffective is not being able to follow through, not being able to learn from their mistakes, unable to collaborate and have overall bad judgement (Becker’s Hospital Review, 2020).

The purpose solution to this problem is to have management training available to all staff in leadership roles will help to solve the lack of leadership. To achieve this goal, there at first need to be certain resources obtained like involving the medical providers, stakeholders, educational materials, financial resources, training, and a set time allotted to the training. Then a focus group will need to be done with the medical providers to see what is lacking in their management skills and what training they feel works better for their schedule. This same kind of meeting needs to be done with the stakeholders as well. This will also help with obtaining the necessary funding. Then after the meeting, the training can be developed and then the educational material that is needed can also be known. Also, no matter what is involved in the training material, there will be an on-campus class or online training available. Having this kind of training it will help to build the health care workers’ self-confidence in being a leader (Spehar, Sjøvik, Karevold, Rosvold, & Frich, 2017).

This solution of having management training will help to resolve the issue of lack of leadership by assisting to increase the awareness of the importance of leadership and how having more than one skill will help a health care worker become a great leader. Also, be it having more than one avenue of training, which will add to the accessibility for all workers to be able to participate in any form of learning. It will also involve coordination between stakeholders, educators. And health care providers, which will give the training a stronger foundation. This, in turn, will provide health care professionals with increased skills, given them the tools to lead effectively. Then by the increasing awareness of the importance of leadership will help change the hiring process in health care organizations that the people being hired to have great leadership skills. This also helps the health care professionals know their weaknesses and strengths, which also help the health care organization become more efficient in providing quality care. It has already been seen in some organizations that the change of leadership brings improvement in how they function (Qasim, 2015).

Not only will the quality of care be made better with the improvement of leadership in health care, but there will also be more purpose for a health care organization. Having strong, effective leadership pushes people towards achieving the mission and vision of the health care organization. It helps an organization to set goals, complete objectives, and increase the productivity of the organization. When these factors are enhanced, then the expected outcomes would include strong organization communication. It will also help to decrease costs and increase efficiency. While helping to cultivate staff and patient satisfaction. This solution will help create an organization that has is devoted to quality, productivity, increasing the hospital performance, and meeting personnel and organizational goals (Ghiasipour, Mosadeghrad, Arab, & Jaafaripooyan, 2017).

Implementation Plan

To implement this plan of developing more leadership in health, there needs to be a highly detailed plan in place. This includes having the right organizational resources available and communicating effectively to the stakeholders so that they are kept in the loop. It is also important to have a working timeline that puts in place what needs to happen when so that the best result happens. Also, just like with anything, there are possible issues that can happen; these barriers can hinder the success of a plan, so it is important to know what they can be so they can be fixed.

Some of the organizational resources that will be needed to develop the leadership training program I labour, management, finances, time, education material, and stakeholders. There would need to be funding to train the employees and to obtain the materials needed to train the employees. These educational materials would include software programs, classroom space, and needed paperwork. Then when it comes to labour, this would include the staff involved in the leadership classes and the staff needed in teaching the skills. Other organizational resources would be time there would need to be the right allotment of time set aside so that all the steps can be correctly done. Another important resource would be the stakeholders they need to be effectively communicated with so the implementation plan can be effectively and correctly followed through with.

The stakeholders to implement the plan of having a leadership training program would be the providers. Payors and educators. The providers are the ones that give care to patients and are the main ones that will need the leadership classes. When it comes to provides, there are less emphases put on formal management training and more on clinical work, leaving a void. So, providers need to give their input on how the training needs to be formatted to best fit them so that it has more of a chance to succeed. Through the management training, the health care providers can gain skills needed to also be an effective leader by being able to plan, organize, and problem solve.

This leadership program will also help to elevate the tension between health care providers’ clinical and leadership roles (Spehar, Karevold, Rosvold, & Frich, 2017). The payors are needed to fund the plan so that all the available materials can be obtained. Payors can be the government or investors, and their job is to help fund care that is efficient, high quality, and cost-effective for the health care services users (Pressbooks, n.d.). If there is no proper funding in place, then there can be no plan implementation. Then the educators are needed to provide education to the health care staff. Their input is important in how the educational program should be set up to emphasize learning. All these stakeholders play a vital role in how the plan can be implemented, monitored and eventually become part of the educational process of the organization.

This leadership educational program will help the staff become more effective leaders and, in turn, provide a higher quality of care. Good leadership helps to motivate staff monitors to accomplish the vision and mission of the organization. This will make sure that the stakeholders become more invested in the organization. It will help to improve staff performance, and studies have shown that when medical providers are the ones in management, it adds a positive effect to performance. Improving the leadership in an organization will positively impact how the care standards are maintained, the goals are achieved, how patient care is provided, and helps to give financial stability (Al-Habib, 2020). It will help the organization provide a better quality of care and add to a happier, more productive workforce.

To implement this plan, it will be done in different phases. During the first month, it would include strategic planning with a swat analysis included. There will also be a stakeholder focus group done to communicate the plan and get feedback. Then an assessment of the internal and external environment will be done, then after this information is gathered in the second month, there would be the establishment of the type of training that works for everyone, and then educational materials can be provided. The fourth and fifth month will be spent on building a strong leadership program this will include seeing which programs work best, what avenues of training are best, and how they can be evaluated on performance. The sixth month would be the launch of the program with evaluations performed after each class to see how the participants felt in class, and if they feel any changes can be made. Also, their work performance would be evaluated to see if the training is increasing the leadership skills of the staff. Then after the first-year data would be calculated and compared to each other to see if the training is making a difference and if any tweaks need to be made.

Finally, an important step in the implementation process is being able to identify potential barriers and having a plan in place to overcome them. Some potential barriers that can affect this plan would be the lack of communication with the stakeholders and the non-efficient educational process. When the communication is not effective at all stages of the plan implementation, then it is less likely to work. This also can lower the stakeholders’ understanding of why the plan needs to happen, which can affect the type of funding that will be provided. A way to overcome this barrier by there being effective communication during all steps of the implementation process so that there is always an understanding and the avenue of communication is kept open. Then the other possible barrier could be the educational process is not efficient. This means the participants can possibly not learn any of the information needed to become better leaders.

During this plan implementation, there has to b the right organizational resources used and the right kind of tools utilized to keep the stakeholders interested and invested in the process so that it can be a success. There also must be a working timeline and a discussion on what potential barriers there can be so that a plan to overcome them before they become out of hand will also help the plan be successful.

Evaluation

Then after implementing the leadership plan, it will then be evaluated. The best evaluation approach to take with this plan is to perform a learning evaluation because, during this evaluation, qualitative data is collected and reported with quantitative data in real-time, continuously so that the evaluation team can make needed changes at specific intervals. Also, the data is shared with the organization at learning meetings. This evaluation would work great with trying to implement a leadership learning program. The learning evaluation also helps to build infrastructure within the organization, which works to provide information that can be used in future implementations. There are five principals in the learning evaluation these are collecting qualitative data to see what different practices make what kind of changes, identify outcome data to monitor change, assisting practices to make use of the data so they can improve the process, looking at contextual factors that might affect the implementation, then the fifth principle is when common measures are used in cross-project methods to generate transportable findings (Balasubramanian, Cohen, Davis, et al., 2015).

These principles translate to evaluate the leadership program would be first collecting different data. This data would include documents, which would be training materials, reports from the different training sessions. Another source of data is online diaries, which would be collected from the health care providers involved in the initial training programs to help see how they were felling about the program and what skills they are learning. Data was also collected from intervals; these were conducted every six months, and they were done in group or phone interviews. There would also be surveys done at every step of the plan implementation, pre-intervention, intervention and post-intervention. Data is also going to be collected from HER to see the different patient outcomes (Balasubramanian, Cohen, Davis, et al., 2015).

So, the data collected is first used to answer some preliminary questions like who the key stakeholders or what type of changes are needed to be made within the organization. Then the same data collected will be used to assess the process and outcome measures to see the functional characteristics and to see how different measures produced different outcomes like learning platforms. Another part of the evaluation process would be to keep up with the data like with the diary entries continuous, it helps to see the progress of how the health care providers are doing in the leadership program. Then audits of the program will be looked at to see how the program is doing and what changes need to be made.

Dissemination Strategy

After the evaluation of the plan is completed and all needed changes are made so that the plan is working the best for everyone and actively shows that it is adding to patient quality improvement and increased employee satisfaction. Then the findings would be published in a national journal so that other health care organizations can look over the findings and know what the program consists of so that they can also implement the program in their company. Also, for organizations that are interested in the program, can there be different training toolkits created. Also, to disseminate the program within the company, and with the organizations’ stakeholders, there will be progress reports and policy briefs. There would also be one on one meetings done to help push the new policy changes to the health care providers and other health care workers. To also help overcome any barriers to the dissemination of the program to other organizations, more than one tool will be utilized, for example, the national journal, on social media, and distributing program materials. To also get this plan out different partners will be used to help get the program out to different areas so that all avenues can be used. Then during the dissemination process, it will also be evaluated to see if the different avenues used are being successful, and the goals are being met (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2014).

References

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2014). Dissemination planning tool: Exhibit A from Volume 4. Retrieved from https://www.ahrq.gov/patient-safety/resources/advances/vol4/planning.html

AL-HABIB, N. M. I. (2020). Leadership and organizational performance: Is it essential in healthcare systems improvement? A review of the literature. Saudi Journal of Anaesthesia, 14(1), 69–76. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.4103/sja.SJA_288_19

Balasubramanian, B.A., Cohen, D.J., Davis, M.M., Gunn, R., Dickinson, L.M., Miller, W.L., Crabtree, B. F., & Stange, K. C. (2015). Learning evaluation: blending quality improvement and implementation research methods to study healthcare innovations. Implementation Science, 10(1), 1-11. https://dpo-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1186.s13012-015-0219-z

Becker’s Hospital Review. (2020). 10 reasons healthcare leaders fail and how to prevent them. Retrieved from https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/10-reasons-healthcare-leaders-fail-and-how-to-prevent-them.html

Ghiasipour, M., Mosadeghrad, A. M., Arab, M., & Jaafaripooyan, E. (2017). Leadership challenges in health care organizations: The case of Iranian hospitals. Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 31, 96. https://doi.org/10.14196/mjiri.31.96

Qasim, H. (2015). Lack of professional leadership leads to inefficient services at our healthcare facilities. Pulse International, 16(24), 5-7.

Pressbooks. (n.d). Introducing the key stakeholders: patients, providers, payors, and policymakers (the four p’s). Retrieved from https://jln1.pressbooks.com/chapter/3-introducing-the-key-stakeholders-patients-providers-payors-and-policymakers-the-four-ps/

Spehar, I., Sjøvik, H., Karevold, K. I., Rosvold, E. O., & Frich, J. C. (2017). General practitioners’ views on leadership roles and challenges in primary health care: a qualitative study. Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care, 35(1), 105–110. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/02813432.2017.1288819