Leadership behaviours and healthcare research performance: prospective correlational study

The Effect of Innovation Capabilities of Health Care Organizations on the Quality of Health Information Technology: Model Development With Cross-sectional Data

Background

Large health organizations often struggle to build complex health information technology (HIT) solutions and are faced with ever-growing pressure to continuously innovate their information systems. Limited research has been conducted that explores the relationship between organizations’ innovative capabilities and HIT quality in the sense of achieving high-quality support for patient care processes.

Objective

The aim of this study is to explain how core constructs of organizational innovation capabilities are linked to HIT quality based on a conceptual sociotechnical model on innovation and quality of HIT, called the IQ_HIT model, to help determine how better information provision in health organizations can be achieved.

Methods

We designed a survey to assess various domains of HIT quality, innovation capabilities of health organizations, and context variables and administered it to hospital chief information officers across Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Data from 232 hospitals were used to empirically fit the model using partial least squares structural equation modeling to reveal associations and mediating and moderating effects.

Results

The resulting empirical IQ_HIT model reveals several associations between the analyzed constructs, which can be summarized in 2 main insights. First, it illustrates the linkage between the constructs measuring HIT quality by showing that the professionalism of information management explains the degree of HIT workflow support (R²=0.56), which in turn explains the perceived HIT quality (R²=0.53). Second, the model shows that HIT quality was positively influenced by innovation capabilities related to the top management team, the information technology department, and the organization at large. The assessment of the model’s statistical quality criteria indicated valid model specifications, including sufficient convergent and discriminant validity for measuring the latent constructs that underlie the measures of HIT quality and innovation capabilities.

Conclusions

The proposed sociotechnical IQ_HIT model points to the key role of professional information management for HIT workflow support in patient care and perceived HIT quality from the viewpoint of hospital chief information officers. Furthermore, it highlights that organizational innovation capabilities, particularly with respect to the top management team, facilitate HIT quality and suggests that health organizations establish this link by applying professional information management practices. The model may serve to stimulate further scientific work in the field of HIT adoption and diffusion and to provide practical guidance to managers, policy makers, and educators on how to achieve better patient care using HIT.

Leadership for Innovation in Healthcare: An Exploration

Although leadership has been studied extensively, most research has focused on the political and military spheres. More recent work has also examined the role of leadership in sectors such as manufacturing and technology, both areas where it is essential to encourage and nurture innovation. Yet, in the health sector, where innovation is now high on the policy agenda in many countries, there is a paucity of research on how leadership can foster a culture of innovation. In this perspective, written for those seeking to foster innovation in the health sector, we offer a narrative synthesis approach of eight theories and concepts that have been empirically shown to support innovation through all phases of the innovation process.

A brief discussion of aspects in breast cancer research, science mentorship and the workplace culture today

Balkees Abderrahman speaks to Roshaine Wijayatunga, managing commissioning editor: Balkees Abderrahman is a Fellow of Breast Medical Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine of Great Britain. She is a PhD trainee under model “Applicants of Very High Quality” at the Faculty of Medicine, The University of Leeds, West Yorkshire, Great Britain. She works with Professor V Craig Jordan, OBE, FMedSci. Dr. Abderrahman is the author of “Steroid Receptors in Breast Cancer, The Breast: Comprehensive Management of Benign and Malignant Diseases 2017”, “Hormones and Cancer, Oxford Textbook of Cancer Biology 2018”, “First Targeted Therapy – History of Tamoxifen, Estrogen Receptor and Breast Cancer, Cancer Drug Discovery and Development, Springer Nature 2018” and “Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators (SERMs), Estrogen Receptor and Breast Cancer, Cancer Drug Discovery and Development, Springer Nature 2018”. She has published several articles in breast cancer research. She is also the author of “Love at the Gate” and “Oliver and the Rock” and a contributor at Nature, the Pharmaceutical Journal of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, The Independent, The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Post, The Huffington Post, US News and World Report, The Hill and The Nation. She was a finalist for the Outstanding Youth Award at the United Nations from over 86 countries for “Her outstanding work in tackling some of our greatest social, economic, and environmental challenges”.