Health Care Leaders' Perspectives on How Continuous Professional Development Can Be Promoted in a Hospital...

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Organizational Learning
• Professional Development

Background:

• Leaders are crucial for continuous learning in healthcare organizations.
• There is limited understanding of how hospital leaders foster continuous learning environments.
• Promoting reflective practice in small groups is a key strategy for professional development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore how key hospital stakeholders perceive their roles and approaches in promoting reflective practice for continuous professional development.
• To identify the perceived barriers and facilitators to implementing small-group learning within a hospital setting.

Main Methods:

• Purposive sampling of six key stakeholders (department directors, ward managers, resident supervisors) from a regional hospital.
• Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather qualitative data.
• Abductive content analysis was used to analyze the interview transcripts.

Main Results:

• Leaders emphasized the importance of system-wide cultural and structural conditions for small-group learning.
• Leaders' proposed approaches focused on limited parts of the system and lower hierarchical levels.
• A gap exists between leaders' understanding of necessary conditions and their suggested implementation strategies.

Conclusions:

• The gap highlights challenges in implementing system-wide continuous professional development strategies.
• Effective implementation requires leaders to adopt a systemic perspective and recognize their own learning needs.
• Leaders must create learning opportunities that encompass the entire hospital system for successful professional development.