Leadership's Impact on Improving Person-Centred Care in Healthcare Organizations: A Literature Review

Abstract

This dissertation explores leadership’s impact on improving and integrating person-centred care (PCC) in hospitals and various healthcare organizations (HCOs). The author used a qualitative research design and an integrative literature review methodology. The literature review provides interesting examples of the effective use of different leadership styles for changing the traditional healthcare paradigm to PCC. Several effective leadership styles were identified, such as transformational, adaptive, servant and visionary. All these leadership styles share similar components, such as flexibility and person-centredness. Leaders who were able to encourage subordinates to become engaged in the process of change have achieved impressive results and improved patient-centred care. The most common methods used by such leaders are effective educational programs, creation of vision and mission statements, development of clear goals and sub-goals that can be measured, self-reflection and self-awareness, analysis of organizational history and consideration of previous experience related to innovations. Furthermore, senior leadership commitment was found to predict effective transition to PCC. All these components and strategies of leadership directly contribute to a better process of organizational change and improvement of PCC in hospitals and other HCOs. The suggestions on how HCOs should apply various leadership styles, as well as implications for future researchers, are also discussed.