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Background
Clinical leaders in health systems play critical roles in making decisions that impact patient
care and health system performance. Current literature has focused on the importance of
clinical leaders’ roles in healthcare settings and has not addressed the leadership aspect
that clinical leaders engage in day-to-day decision-making in HIV facilities while providing
HIV patient care. Therefore, identifying the leadership roles that wclinical leaders perform at
HIV primary facilities is of critical importance.
Purpose
The study explored the views of healthcare providers working in AMPATH-MTRH HIV facil-
ity on what they perceived as the roles of clinical leaders at the HIV primary care facility.
Methods
We conducted a qualitative exploratory study between December 2019 to May 2020, involv-
ing in-depth interviews with (n = 22) healthcare providers working in AMPATH-MTRH HIV
facility, who were purposively and conveniently sampled to participate in in-depth interviews
to explore perceptions regarding the leadership roles of clinical leaders. The collected data
were analyzed thematically and Nvivo vs.12 software was used for data management.
Results
The following themes were identified from the analysis regarding perceived clinical leaders’
roles in an HIV primary care facility: 1) Strategic roles: providing direction and guidance,
ensuring goals and objectives of the department are achieved within the set timelines, plan-
ning, and budgeting for adequate resources to support patient HIV care 2) Interconnecting
health systems levels and supervisory oversight roles: a link between management, staff,
and patients, solving problems, organizing and attending departmental meetings, facilitate
staff training, accountable, collaborating with other departments and leaders, defines andassigns responsibilities, ensure quality patient service, coordination, and management of
daily activities 3) Research roles: data collation, analysis, generation, review and reporting
to the management.
Conclusion
Clinical leaders in the HIV care system perform leadership roles that are characterized by
strategic, middle-level, supervisorial and research which reflects the model of the leadership
and management style of the HIV care system. The understanding of these roles contrib-
utes valuable insights to HIV leaders and managers to recognize the important contribution
of clinical leaders and consider reviewing Standard Operating Procedures to include these
leadership roles and strengthen their capacity to maximize clinicians’ contribution to improve
HIV care and enhance responsive health systems. |
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