Physician leadership in e-health? A systematic literature review
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to systematically review the literature on roles of physicians in virtual teams (VTs) delivering healthcare for effective “physician e-leadership” (PeL) and implementation of e-health.
Design/methodology/approach
The analyzed studies were retrieved with explicit keywords and criteria, including snowball sampling. They were synthesized with existing theoretical models on VT research, healthcare team competencies and medical leadership.
Findings
Six domains for further PeL inquiry are delineated: resources, task processes, socio-emotional processes, leadership in VTs, virtual physician-patient relationship and change management. We show that, to date, PeL studies on socio-technical dynamics and their consequences on e-health are found underrepresented in the health literature; i.e. no single empirical, theoretic or conceptual study with a focus on PeL in virtual healthcare work was identified.
Research limitations/implications
E-health practices could benefit from organization-behavioral type of research for discerning effective physicians’ roles and inter-professional relations and their (so far) seemingly modest but potent impact on e-health developments.
Practical implications
Although best practices in e-health care have already been identified, this paper shows that physicians’ roles in e-health initiatives have not yet received any in-depth study. This raises questions such as are physicians not yet sufficiently involved in e-health? If so, what (dis)advantages may this have for current e-health investments and how can they best become involved in (leading) e-health applications’ design and implementation in the field?
Originality/value
If effective medical leadership is being deployed, e-health effectiveness may be enhanced; this new proposition needs urgent empirical scrutiny.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors want to thank the following persons for their assistance and advice during the development process of this research and publication: John Oates, Lydia Joostema, Maran Noltes and Yongchen Liu. Part of this research was based on work within the SmartCare Project that received funding from the European Union’s ICT Policy Support Program as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Program under GA no. 325158. This publication only reflects the authors’ views. The European Union, SmartCare Partners or University of Twente are not liable for any use that might be made of the information contained in this manuscript.
Citation
Keijser, W., Smits, J., Penterman, L. and Wilderom, C. (2016), "Physician leadership in e-health? A systematic literature review", Leadership in Health Services, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 331-347. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHS-12-2015-0047
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited