Leadership at the front line: a clinical partnership model on general care inpatient units

Hospitals strive to provide all their patients with quality care that is safe, timely, efficient, equitable, effective, and patient centered. Although hospitals have developed technology- and industry-based quality improvement models, there remains a need to better engage the frontline health care workers at the site of care to enhance communication and coordination of care. To foster the work environment and relationships in the general acute care units, the authors describe a leadership model that partners a nurse manager with a physician director to build a local clinical care environment that seeks to enhance the whole patient care experience.