Leadership and Health System Re-Design

Funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR), the purpose of this three-year research initiative is to develop leadership capacity in the Canadian health system through applied research and knowledge translation. The applicant team will accomplish this by bringing together two nascent networks representing decision-makers from across Canada (under the auspices of the Canadian Health Leadership Network [CHLNet]) and the health research community (led by Royal Roads University [RRU]) in a unique collaborative partnership - a network of networks. This network of networks will be dedicated to accessing, appraising and applying existing evidence and conducting applied research to discover new evidence in support of leadership in the Canadian health system.
 
The network will bring together, at a regional and national level, researchers, knowledge translators and decision-makers who wish to develop, exchange, and use knowledge regarding best leadership practices for health system improvement. Researchers and decision-makers will identify 'naturally occurring experiments' across Canada. The key areas of focus will be determined by the network's five regional jurisdictions (network nodes) stewarded by a national overarching network. Based on decision-maker input to date, anticipated areas of focus will include: chronic disease management, implementation of a quality improvement and safety culture, and care of the elderly. The leadership employed in these priority areas will be examined in situ at the micro (unit), meso (organizational, program delivery), and macro (health authority, provincial/territorial) levels of service delivery.
 
Specific objectives are to:

• create an evidence-base of the qualities that leaders use to address critical health challenges successfully;
• translate existing knowledge of what comprises effective leadership in different organizational contexts into improved leadership development approaches;
• explore effective means to develop and sustain leaders at all stages of their career; and
• develop a set of national standards for leadership.