Managing Healthcare Organisations In Challenging Policy Contexts

Healthcare managers, professionals and service users operate in an increasingly complex environment in terms of policy, regulation and governance arrangements. The policy process is becoming pluralised as competing narratives are drawn upon to influence practice. A wide range of contradictory and inconsistent policies are on offer to healthcare stakeholders, which ultimately results in a broad spectrum of responses, adaptations and improvisations throughout the process of policy implementation. The impact on managerial and professional practice is significant: Whilst some voices are suppressed or ignored, the complex nature of contemporary policy contexts can also help local actors exercise their agency and advance their agenda. This edited volume investigates how contemporary policy trends are influencing healthcare systems, organisations and professions and explores the various ways in which policy implementation could be enacted, resisted and reinvented by healthcare managers and professionals on the ground. It sheds light on the complex web of connections that exist between policy development (Part I), its translation into practice (Part II), and the activities of organisational leaders who are trying their best to make sense of – and succeed in – challenging policy contexts (Part III).

Healthcare managers, professionals and service users operate in an increasingly complex environment in terms of policy, regulation and governance arrangements. The policy process is becoming pluralised as competing narratives are drawn upon to influence practice. A wide range of contradictory and inconsistent policies are on offer to healthcare stakeholders, which ultimately results in a broad spectrum of responses, adaptations and improvisations throughout the process of policy implementation. The impact on managerial and professional practice is significant: Whilst some voices are suppressed or ignored, the complex nature of contemporary policy contexts can also help local actors exercise their agency and advance their agenda. This edited volume investigates how contemporary policy trends are influencing healthcare systems, organisations and professions and explores the various ways in which policy implementation could be enacted, resisted and reinvented by healthcare managers and professionals on the ground. It sheds light on the complex web of connections that exist between policy development (Part I), its translation into practice (Part II), and the activities of organisational leaders who are trying their best to make sense of - and succeed in - challenging policy contexts (Part III). Roman Kislov is Director of the Decent Work and Productivity Research Centre in Manchester Metropolitan University and Deputy Theme Lead for Implementation Science in the National Institute for Health Research Applied Research Collaboration (NIHR ARC) Greater Manchester. He is Secretary of the Society for Studies in Organising Health Care (SHOC). Diane Burns is Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies at Sheffield University Management School. She is Deputy Chair of SHOC and serves on the Leadership Group of the Sustainable Care Research Programme funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. Bjørn Erik Mørk is Professor of Innovation, Research Centre Leader for the Centre for Healthcare Management and Programme Director for Healthcare Management at BI Norwegian Business School. Kathleen Montgomery is Professor of the Graduate Division and Emerita Professor of Organisations and Management at the University of California, Riverside. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

A comprehensive, research-based introduction to healthcare management, covering healthcare systems, services, organisations and management.

Until now, research has given us only a limited understanding of how managers actually make sense of and apply management knowledge; how networks of interaction amongst managers help or hinder processes of knowledge diffusion and the sharing of best practice; and how these processes are all influenced both by the organisations in which managers act and by the professional communities of practice they belong to. Managing Modern Healthcare fills these important gaps in our understanding by drawing upon an in-depth study of management networks and practice in three healthcare organisations in the UK. It draws from the primary research a number of important and grounded lessons about how management networks develop and influence the spread of management knowledge and practice; how management training and development relates to the needs of managers facing challenging conditions; and how those conditions are themselves shaping the nature of management in healthcare. This book reveals how managers in practice are responding to the many contemporary challenges facing healthcare (and the NHS in particular) and how they are able or not to effectively exploit sources of knowledge, learning and best practice through the networks of practice they engage in to improve healthcare delivery and healthcare organisational performance. Managing Modern Healthcare makes a number of important theoretical contributions as well as practical recommendations. The theoretical and empirical contributions the book makes relate to wider work on networks and networking, management knowledge, situated learning/communities of practice, professionalization/professional identity and healthcare management more generally. The practical contribution comes in the form of recommendations for healthcare management practitioners and policy makers that are intended to impact upon and help enhance healthcare management delivery and performance.

"... this is an excellent text. It is well constructed and appropriately pitched and, because the editors seek feedback on its style and content, it is likely to retain its relevance in future editions." Nursing Management This comprehensive text covers all of the major aspects of healthcare management and is written by experts in the field. The book is structured into three main sections, bracketed by an introductory chapter setting the policy context and offering an overview/map of what follows; a concluding chapter draws together the key themes and offers a view about the future development and trends in healthcare management. The main sections of the book examine: The health policy and practice context for healthcare management The specific challenges of managing healthcare organizations Key managerial techniques and methods that managers need to be able to use effectively in their practice Chapters include self-test exercises, summary boxes, further reading and a list of web-based resources. This book is key reading for researchers, managers and healthcare policy makers with a genuine interest in the links between the theory and practice of healthcare management and how best practice might be achieved within healthcare systems. Contributors: Lawrence Benson, Carol Brooks, Ruth Boaden, Naomi Chambers, Deborah Davidson, Jennifer Dixon, Jenny Douglas, Tim Freeman, Jon Glasby, Neil Goodwin, Andrew Hine, Paula Hyde, Kim Jelphs, Justin Keen, Helen Lester, Ann Mahon, Anne McBride, Ruth McDonald, Shirley McIver, Steve Onyett, Helen Parker, Edward Peck, Suzanne Robinson, Ann Shacklady-Smith, Judith Smith, Anne Tofts, Tom Walley, Kieran Walshe, Juliet Woodin.

Reflecting the challenges and opportunities of achieving improvement in healthcare systems, the contributions of this innovative new text lend depth and nuance to an increasing area of academic debate. Encompassing context, processes and agency, Managing Improvements in Healthcare addresses the task of attaining, embedding and sustaining improvement in the industry. The book begins by offering insight into the different valued aspects of quality, providing specific examples of national and organizational interventions in pursuit of improvement. The second part focuses on strategies for embedding good practice and ensuring the spread of high quality through knowledge mobilization, and the final part draws attention to the different groups of change agents involved in delivering, co-creating and benefitting from quality improvement. This inventive text will be insightful to those researchers interested in healthcare and organization, looking to transform theory into policy and practice.

This reader offers instant access to fifty classic and original readings in health policy and management. Compiled by experts, the editors introduce a framework setting out the key policy drivers and policy levers, giving a conceptual framework that provides context for each piece.

It is vital for healthcare leaders to have a clear sense of which leadership ideas and practices are rooted in sound theory and convincing evidence, and which are more speculative. This book provides a coherent set of six lenses through which to scrutinise the leadership literature relevant to healthcare - leadership concepts, characteristics, contexts, challenges, capabilities and consequences. It offers a view of leadership beyond the traditional focus on the individual, and argues instead that leadership has to be understood and developed as a complex set of practices by many people within specific organisational and inter-organisational contexts and cultures.