Empirical exploration of brilliance in health care: perceptions of health professionals.

Objective The aim of the present study was to develop a positive organisational scholarship in health care approach to health management, informed by health managers and health professionals' experiences of brilliance in health care delivery. Methods A sample of postgraduate students with professional and/or management experience within a health service was invited to share their experiences of brilliant health services via online discussions and a survey running on the SurveyMonkey platform. A lexical analysis of student contributions was conducted using the individual as the unit of analysis. Results Using lexical analysis, the examination of themes in the concept map, the relationships between themes and the relationships between concepts identified 'care' as the most important concept in recognising brilliance in health care, followed by the concepts of 'staff' and 'patient'. Conclusions The research presents empirical material to support the emergence of an evidence-based health professional perspective of brilliance in health management. The findings support other studies that have drawn on both quantitative and qualitative materials to explore brilliance in health care. Pockets of brilliance have been previously identified as catalysts for changing health care systems. Both quality, seen as driven from the outside, and excellence, driven from within individuals, are necessary to produce brilliance. What is known about the topic? The quest for brilliance in health care is not easy but essential to reinvigorating and energising health professionals to pursue the highest possible standards of health care delivery. What does this paper add? Using an innovative methodology, the present study identified the key drivers that health care professionals believe are vital to moving in the direction of identifying brilliant performance. What are the implications for practitioners? This work presents evidence on the perceptions of leadership and management practices associated with brilliant health management. Lessons learned from exceptionally well-delivered services contain different templates for change than those dealing with failures, errors, misconduct and the resulting negativity.

Equipping clinical leaders for system and service improvements in quality and safety: an Australian experience.

OBJECTIVE: To develop clinical leadership among health professionals working in public sector organisations to improve their skills in ensuring high quality and safe health services. METHODS: A longitudinal pre-post-intervention mixed methods study that included 60 health professionals working in one state in Australia. RESULTS: The program was successful in the development of clinical leaders. CONCLUSIONS: An interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral leadership development program involving health professionals from metropolitan, regional and rural areas can be successful in developing knowledge, skills and competencies among these health professionals in health service quality and safety. IMPLICATIONS: Health professionals can participate in a development program to enhance their clinical leadership skills. While this was a post-qualification course, targeting experienced health professionals, the learnings could be applied to pre-qualification education of health professionals.

Finding brilliance using positive organizational scholarship in healthcare.

PURPOSE: Positive organizational scholarship in healthcare (POSH) suggests that, to promote widespread improvement within health services, focusing on the good, the excellent, and the brilliant is as important as conventional approaches that focus on the negative, the problems, and the failures. POSH offers different opportunities to learn from and build resilient cultures of safety, innovation, and change. It is not separate from tried and tested approaches to health service improvement--but rather, it approaches this improvement differently. The paper aims to discuss these issues. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: POSH, appreciative inquiry (AI) and reflective practice were used to inform an exploratory investigation of what is good, excellent, or brilliant health service management. FINDINGS: The researchers identified new characteristics of good healthcare and what it might take to have brilliant health service management, elucidated and refined POSH, and identified research opportunities that hold potential value for consumers, practitioners, and policymakers. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: The secondary data used in this study offered limited contextual information. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: This approach is a platform from which to: identify, investigate, and learn about brilliant health service management; and inform theory and practice. SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS: POSH can help to reveal what consumers and practitioners value about health services and how they prefer to engage with these services. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: Using POSH, this paper examines what consumers and practitioners value about health services; it also illustrates how brilliance can be theorized into health service management research and practice.