The importance of leadership in innovation processes in nursing homes: An integrative review

Abstract

The rapidly growing number of older people with increasingly complex needs places pressure on quality of care and thereby presents a need for innovation in nursing homes. The aim of this review was to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of evidence for the importance of leadership in innovation processes in nursing homes. A systematic search was conducted. Titles and abstracts were screened for relevance, data from full texts were extracted and reduced and quality appraisal was performed. Content analysis resulted in two categories: organizational factors associated with innovation and leadership characteristics in innovation, constructing the overall theme, ‘leadership: a key to successful innovations’. The innovations described in the included studies transform the underlying values of organizational culture. The review shows that participative, involving and innovative leadership is the key to success in innovation processes.

Practice-based learning and innovation in nursing homes

“…Despite these addressed challenges, research on learning and innovation in nursing homes is relatively scarce. The studies that exist-both Norwegian (Totcheva, Vedeler and Slettebø, 2019;Eines, Angelo and Vatne, 2019;Eines and Vatne, 2018;Glette et al, 2018;Øye et al, 2016) and international (Brodtkorb, Skaar and Slettebø, 2019;Bezboruah Paulson and Smith, 2014;Wegener, 2016)-highlight the importance of leadership and management engagement and capacities when innovation processes are initiated at nursing homes. Other studies approaching learning as a prerequisite for innovation point to the potential in care workers everyday work practices where problems occur, new ideas are tried out, and colleagues serve as reflection partners (Verleye and Gemmel, 2011;Fuglsang, 2010;Wegener and Tanggaard, 2013;Wegener, 2012) Some studies find that, to improve the quality of care delivered to nursing home residents, the care professionals must be educated on the evidence-based practice and proper use of guidelines derived from the theory of gerotranscendens.…”

Appropriate leadership in nursing home care: a narrative review

“…Especially more recent articles move away from leadership styles and focus more on behaviors essential for new developments in nursing homes. In the articles of Brodtkorb et al (2019) and Backman et al (2018) , important leadership characteristics were identified to support the implementation of person-centered care. Havig and Hollister (2018) focused on the interplay of independent workgroups (resembling self-organization) and appropriate supportive leadership.…”

Developmental Evaluation of the CHOICE+ Champion Training Program

“…Scores related to the application of the training materials indicate that while participants are very committed to applying their learnings, there were hesitations around their organization's readiness to adopt the CHOICE+ Program. Organizational context and culture, specifically turnover of managers and lack of leadership engagement at the outset of implementation, as well as minimum mentorship for staff to take on leadership roles have been cited as negatively influencing efforts to improve care practice (Brodtkorb et al, 2019;Tappen et al, 2017). Turnover among care staff can have equally devastating effects on innovation uptake, where instability and feelings of disempowerment result in lack of ownership of initiatives, further reducing morale and slowing adoption (Backman et al, 2020;Chamberlain et al, 2017).…”