In his second article on GenAI, Alex Fairweather explains why openness is essential to unlock new opportunities and benefits from new technologies within the healthcare sector.
Management strategy is often misunderstood as overly technical, systematic and process-driven. This article goes through well-researched aspects of leadership that I hope give an easy-to-understand, and more importantly easy-to-apply blueprint to create a positive culture and lead your organisation through technology adoption.
“Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them,” said Apple founder Steve Jobs. While true in any context, the message that you should empower and trust your people is especially true when implementing technology.
Philip Weintraub and Martin McKee, who have written about leadership and innovation in healthcare, have identified eight theories to facilitate innovation in healthcare:
- Creating a psychological climate for innovation
- Leader-member exchange
- Social capital
- Leadership clarity
- Supporting team reflectivity
- Employee mindset
- Organisation culture that supports innovation
- Style of senior leadership
Walking the walk
These theories have a large focus on human or soft aspects of leadership and are more collaborative and less directive in nature. Often, human barriers are cited as origins of resistance and failure of innovation in healthcare. Culture lays the foundation for success or failure in any business. While a company may succeed in a growing market by nature of excessive demand, if the foundations are built on sand, success will be hard to find when times get tough. Underpinning culture is a climate created within an organisation – this is the daily actions and values coming from all staff, but most importantly from leaders regardless of statements or speeches made.
More bluntly put, you talk the talk but do you walk the walk?
In the technology world, there are plenty of examples of innovative culture, Apple and Google for example both actively encourage experimentation and allow staff time to do so. In healthcare, there are legitimate obstacles to large-scale experimentation, such as regulatory compliance and the need for strict governance not to mention time demands, but small-scale trials properly supervised are usually easily workable.
In healthcare we often have leaders that come from a clinical background who can be, dare I say, very experienced in their way of doing things but with little training or exposure to new technology. We then see younger colleagues more capable of using modern technology, which leads to a cultural barrier.
How can this be overcome?
The good news, if you’re a more experienced clinical leader, is that supporting and encouraging younger colleagues through regular dialogue and involvement in your overall purpose and strategy will build the climate to explore using innovative technologies.
The same should be explored with patients (possibly through focus groups), but the point is that involving key stakeholders will build a positive culture. A natural progression will be more clarity around what technologies you can explore for specific functions that align with your overall strategy (as I wrote in a previous article). Highlighting the need for positive climate and culture, a case study of a well-documented IT system failure in the NHS found several key reasons for failure including poor external relationships, poor project planning, employee distrust and internal conflict, a lack of cultural alignment and behavioural issues largely from low staff morale.
From this study four key lessons were learned. First, the critical need for proper project planning, considering policy changes, procurement strategies and implementation steps to build the proper foundations. Then ensuring that IT strategy meets the needs of users, first understanding the needs, limitations of users and rates of user acceptance. Next, that culture change comes first led by project leadership and direction. And finally, the need for stakeholder engagement from the very beginning.
Open organisations
An open organisational culture, where experimentation and open discussion towards innovation makes the process overall less stressful, easier and more successful. More generally, openness is essential in collaboration with the wider healthcare community to unlock opportunities and benefits from new technologies.
Management and leadership in healthcare should be viewed more holistically than the actions needed to run the business as usual. Many traditional definitions of management fall short of real-world needs, especially true in healthcare settings where the management needs of people and processes are dynamic, complex and often not clearly defined.
As easy as this is to write, it takes time to get right in practice and any process of change can be hard and painful. The advances in new healthtech though could transform your practice and the lives of your patients. After all, we’re in this industry to make a difference in patient experiences and outcomes.
I’ll leave with two key questions I’d like you all to consider; what culture would power your organisation to the next level of tech enabled healthcare? And how can this improve your patients’ lives?
