Clinical Leadership Evidence Based Practice and Accountability

Question: Discuss about theClinical Leadershipfor Evidence Based Practice and Accountability. Answer: Introduction Clinical leadership may be defined as the ability of an individual who has a clinical expertise in a specific area of practice and who utilizes interpersonal skills for enabling the nurses and the other healthcare providers for delivering quality and safe care to the patients. Leadership is a significant factor in the healthcare settings. The lack of an efficient clinical leadership in the healthcare organization can be disadvantageous with respect to the care of the patients. In the absence of an efficient clinical leader, change in management cannot take place. This review will discuss the importance of clinical leadership in the healthcare settings. In addition, it will highlight some of the examples of negative situations, which the healthcare organizations face due to lack of clinical leadership. Importance of Clinical Leadership in Healthcare The significance of an effectual clinical leadership ensures a healthcare system, which is of a high a high quality and is safe too. Clinical leadership is essential in order to improve the quality as well as safety. However, leadership in the healthcare settings is usually complex as the healthcare professionals have to face a number of challenges in their daily work. The improvements and the quality in healthcare are reliant on the efficacy of the leaders at all the healthcare levels. In Singapore, the clinical leaders are supported by clinical governance for becoming efficient to provide and facilitate quality and safe care by involving the main concepts related to the safety of the patients, management of risks, evidence-based practice, accountability, information and communication by: Placing an obligation of care for improving the performance and outcomes of the team as well as the healthcare organization The systematic synchronization of all the responsibilities with liable practice Team building and interdependence by integrated working Supervising, evaluating, altering and improving the practices for ensuring effective healthcare and safety to the patients. Fostering the organization culture in the healthcare setting and working in an environment of constant learning as well as sharing of knowledge and information. Enhancing the quality and safety with respect to the treatment and care of the patients receiving care Implementing a person-centered approach (Veronesi, Kirkpatrick and Altanlar 2015) The Royal College of nursing has developed a framework of the principles of nursing practice, which highlights the role of clinical leadership to deliver quality, safe, responsive and sympathetic care to the patients. It has been indicated by Huggan et al. (2012), that every healthcare organization need strong and efficient leaders so that the treatments as well as care of the patients are not compromised. The healthcare organizations need to recognize, expand and employ frameworks, which is suitable with their own exceptional culture of the organization as well as the working environment. Clinical leadership requires certain skills such as communication skills, clinical credibility, political skills, moral behaviours and personality. The clinical leaders are valued by the doctor depending on the ability to listen and acting upon the informed decision of the other individuals. Clinical credibility has been considered an important factor for a clinical leader for attaining the respect of his/ her peers and for continuing to support the patients in their best interest. It has been recognized by the doctors that a clinical leader should be resilient and decisive for retaining a strong emotional and mental determination at the time when they are pressurized. It is also been believed by the doctors that passion and enthusiasm should be demonstrated by a clinical leader with respect to their roles and responsibilities (Daly et al. 2014). It is necessary for acknowledging and recognizing that all the healthcare organizations and team members together with an individual level that a scope of improvement is always there. It is also necessary for acknowledging and recognizing that the improvements could be accomplished only by giving support as well as opportunity for teams and individuals for developing. A clinical leader emerges from within the healthcare setting or organization in which he/she works. The reviews of a number of researchers have suggested that a clinical leader does not have a predefined role. According to Koh and Cheah, (2015), a clinical leader emerges from a clinical setting which is usually complex he/she possess appropriate knowledge, expertise and respect for the peers. They also have the ability of building a sound relationship with the team members. A clinical leader needs to be effective as well as affective. The clinical leaders must be effective to bring change in the outcomes through innovat ion and advancements in the clinical settings. The clinical leaders must be affective for bringing a difference. These two can be attained by identifying, empowering and influencing the individuals by means of effectual communication for sharing and learning from one another in practice (Mulla, Hewison and Shapiro 2014). Discussion Clinical leadership studies identify the significance of relationship management together with the necessity of emotional intelligence as well as coaching skills for achieving this. Concentrating on the inter-relational characteristics of leadership is revealed in the perception of democratic and communicative leadership that stresses on the significance of discussion and consideration through organizational development for empowering the staff members. In the absence of an effective clinical leadership, several problems take place due to poor clinical leadership. It can have numerous negative effects on the healthcare organization. When a clinical leader lacks the ability for providing training, coaching, direction and motivation to the team members, then due to this the culture as well as the morale of the healthcare organizations is hampered. It cam have numerous negative effects on the healthcare organizations. A concrete result due to poor clinical leadership often results in po or financial outcomes and in addition, the goals of the healthcare organization cannot be achieved (Ingebrigtsen et al. 2014). According to LEE et al. (2015), the staff members are not inspired by a poor clinical leader for delivering quality performance and looking the opportunities of training and development. A poor clinical leadership is responsible for the downfall of a healthcare organization. Poor clinical leadership may lead to fragmented roles of work and fragmented departments. It means that all the work forces overlook their importance of work for achieving the goals of the healthcare organization and the concerned departments. The other possible outcome of a poor clinical leadership is low morale. It can result from the work forces have an uncertain feeling regarding the healthcare organization as well as their jobs. This issue is also contributed by poor communication. A poor clinical leadership is also responsible for the burn out of the employees as they do not get motivated and are frustrated too. Thus, as a result they look for other jobs as they dot like to a work under a poor clinical lead er, who could not motivate them to achieve goals of the healthcare organization (Brown, Crookes and Dewing 2016). There also occurs a concern that several healthcare professionals may not be fully prepared for understanding the nature of clinical leadership or engage in the roles of clinical leadership due to the lack of leadership content in the curriculum of the undergraduate course. These insufficiencies have been identified by the professional organizations and the providers of the services related to health, particularly in terms of the enquiries that are wide-ranging with respect to the services of health quality in several countries. Consequently, there have several attempts have been made for overcoming these deficiencies in order to prepare healthcare professionals. According to McSherry and Pearce (2016), there are few evidences that the groups of health service providers are making efforts for addressing the issues relating to leadership issues by designing and implementing the programs of leadership development. Clinical leadership has been identified as critical to optimize the qual ity of care and safety of the patients receiving care. An efficient clinical leadership is a prerequisite to understand the multifaceted system of care for the advantage of the clients or the patients as well as to ensure healthy working environments (Brown and Dewing 2016). In several regions of the developed world, the challenges of workforces, changing demands and expectations of the consumers, rising demands for the accessing care, fiscal constraints, and issues associated with the quality and safety level of the patients and a mandate for improving the patient-centered care confronts current hospital care. Effectual governance is necessary for the attempts for maximizing efficient management of care in the healthcare settings. The significance of an effectual clinical leadership is to ensure a high quality healthcare, which constantly provides efficient and safe healthcare has been restated in the academic literature as well as in a variety of government reports. The current reports, commissions and inquiries have promoted clinical leadership as well as engagement of the clinicians as important for achieving and maintaining the improvements to the quality of care and safety of the patients receiving treatment and care (Mannix, Wilkes and Daly 2013). An efficient clinical leadership has been associated with a broad variety of functions. It is a prerequisite of hospital care, together with timely care delivery, system performance, efficiency and integrity of the system, accomplishment of the objectives of health reform and is a fundamental constituent of the healthcare system. However, the majority of the individuals are offered with healthcare within the societal setting, the care of hospital continues for garnering the preponderance of financial support and attracting significant attention with respect to the quality of care and the associated concerns. Certainly, hospitals are expensive and have diverse surroundings, which diverge in dimension and complexity and are evaluated by their overall responsibility and utility within the larger system of healthcare. The services that are offered by the hospitals are evaluated and obligated by several mechanisms, together with the population demographics, policy of the government and th e power and politics of the service providers (Martin and Waring 2013). Conclusion To sum up, clinical leadership is important for ensuring a healthcare system, which is of a high quality and is safe. 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