Leadership in interProfessional healthcare practice (IPHP): Readiness, roles, and compentencies for healthcare managers and human resource professionals

Purpose

This paper focuses on leadership in interprofessional healthcare practice in general; and the readiness of both healthcare management trainees in healthcare management programs and certified human resource management professionals to facilitate and/or lead interprofessional healthcare practice in particular. The authors identify and analyze consensus among two panels made up of 20 healthcare professionals and 35 healthcare management educators. The analysis covers the role human resource (HR) professionals should play in interprofessional healthcare practice (IPHP) and the competencies that both healthcare management trainees and human resource managers should possess in order to facilitate thetransformation of healthcare organizations from professional to interprofessional practice. Authors also assess the readiness of healthcare management education trainees and certified human resource management professionals to lead IPHP.

Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted a cross-sectional design to guide the documentation and assessment of participants’ responses using a modified delphi technique, a nominal technique, and extant literature. Inductive and deductive methods in combination with open, axial, and selective coding were utilized to determine and analyze emerging consensus from the panel of experts.

Findings

There is a convergent of emergent themes on perceived roles and competencies for IPHP leadership from both the panel of healthcare professionals and the panel of healthcare management educators. The themes are also relevant to both organizational change variables and barriers to IPHP, documented in the literature. There is a gap between perceived roles and recommended competencies and the following: the standards for both the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) professional certifications, Commission on theAccreditationof Healthcare Management Education (CAHME) accreditation, recommended core competencies by the Interprofessional Education Collaborative(IPEC), and the degree of interprofessional education penetration in healthcare education programs. These findings underscore the deficit in interprofessional healthcare practice leadership readiness among healthcare management trainees and human resource professionals. Authors make specific recommendations on IPHP leadership for healthcare management training and human resource professional preparation.