Patient-centered care: the role of healthcare leadership.

H E a l t H c a r E l E a d E r s H i p r E v i s i t E d Strong leadership is critically important to organizations, regardless of the setting. researchers have defined leadership in many different ways, but it is often associated with risk taking, dynamic, creative, change, and vision (hughes, Ginnett, and curphy 1999). applying many of these same concepts, the healthcare Leadership alliance and american college of healthcare executives (2011) define healthcare leadership as “the ability to inspire individual and organizational excellence, create a shared vision and successfully manage change to attain the organization’s strategic ends and successful performance.” Leaders determine, communicate, and guide the vision of any organization, and thus leadership engagement in any culture change initiative toward patient-centered care is crucial (frampton et al. 2008).