Reimagine Health Care Leadership, Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century.

PURPOSE: This paper spotlights human capital management, digital technology, and costs control as issues that healthcare leaders will face in redesigning the health care ecosystem in the 21st century.

DESIGN: The paper was designed to highlight the attributes that make effective leaders. It addresses how nursing leadership can take a lead to redesign the 21st Century health care system, supported by case examples.

METHODS: An expansive literature review was done using MEDLINE, SAGE, Google Scholar, and University of California San Diego Library Catalogs. The selections criteria include recent publications in English within and outside the healthcare industry.

FINDINGS: Health leadership is viewed as paramount to productivity, capacity and meeting new challenges.

CONCLUSIONS: Effective nursing leadership in a healthcare organization correlates with staff job satisfaction, retention, turnover and quality of care. Nursing leadership development must be supported by appropriate level of educational preparedness, and requisite set of competencies and skills.