Title: The leadership role in healthcare management

Authors: Renato Lopes da Costa; Rafaela da Costa Pereira; Leandro Pereira; Álvaro Dias; Rui Gonçalves; Ermelinda Carrachás

Addresses: Business Research Unit – BRU-IUL, ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal ' ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal ' WINNING Laboratory, Business Research Unit – BRU-IUL, ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal ' ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal ' ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal ' Instituto Piaget, Almada, Portugal

Abstract: Within the changes in the Portuguese healthcare system across the years, new challenges emerge for healthcare practitioners, organisations, and their management boards, so the recognition of the need for different health professionals in healthcare management has been growing. However, physiotherapists' core responsibilities remain rooted on therapeutic practices and rehabilitation, developed primarily in clinical and hospital environments. Regarding this scenario, physiotherapists' functions continue to be absent to the highest healthcare management and leadership positions, despite their knowledge and understanding about how to ensure the best services to the patients. Using a mixed method approach, this investigation aimed to deepen the drivers to physiotherapists' involvement in healthcare management and leadership roles. For such, we combined a cross-sectional survey which was performed with 287 physiotherapists with in-depth interviews. Findings suggest that networking, knowledge regarding health legislation and policies, and soft skills development, are considered drivers to these roles, amongst other factors.

Keywords: business administration; healthcare management; leadership; physiotherapy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEBR.2022.125392

International Journal of Economics and Business Research, 2022 Vol.24 No.3, pp.374 - 390

Received: 26 Dec 2020
Accepted: 19 Jan 2021
Published online: 08 Sep 2022 *

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