Background. Leadership is a critical lever for supporting implementation of practice change ideas intended to improve care. We need evidence-based leadership programs to help front-line providers meaningfully implement practice change in complex care settings. Part of the SHIFT intervention, this paper describes and pilot tests a leadership program module (LeaderSHIFT) that provides training and implementation coaching to front-line leaders, as one of several integrated facilitated supports designed to help front-line care teams meaningfully enact practice change. Methods. The LeaderSHIFT program module was developed based on empirical work, relevant facilitation and transformational leadership theories, and principles of stakeholder co-design and feasible engagement. A pilot implementation study was conducted that examined several of Proctors (2011) implementation outcomes. Results. LeaderSHIFT includes four interactive workshops plus two one-on-one coaching sessions designed to develop capacity in four areas of implementation leadership: (1) Self-awareness, (2) Motivate and inspire, (3) Facilitate learning capacity, and (4) Support team-oriented processes. Pilot results suggest it can be successfully implemented (it was acceptable, adopted, appropriate, feasible). Fidelity (LeaderSHIFT role enactment) varied across pilot teams. Conclusions. With a strong theoretical and empirical base, LeaderSHIFT highlights important, often overlooked, relational and socio-cultural aspects of successful implementation leadership. As such, the LeaderSHIFT program module has the potential to improve implementation of practice change interventions in nursing homes and other institutional care settings.
Ginsburg et al. (Thu,) studied this question.