The evolving role of the health care supervisor: shifting paradigms, changing perceptions, and other traps

As health care comes under mounting pressure to reduce costs, organizations are restructuring. Delivery systems are changing. As layoffs occur and changes are made in numbers and responsibilities of managers, supervisors find themselves in dramatically changing roles. Job security has become as illusory in health care as elsewhere. Morale among health workers is sagging, and motivational concerns are increasing. The supervisor has been put in the position of having to do more with less and to do it in the face of demoralized forces. The paradigms that were once operational are shifting, and the evolving role of the health care supervisor suggests that a completely new set of paradigms is taking over that suggests the supervisor's future security lies in the ability to learn new things and to shift and change with the environment.