Clinical leadership and hospital performance: assessing the evidence base

The analysis of the extant literature has revealed that research focusing on clinicians' involvement in leadership positions has explored its implications for the management of financial resources, the quality of care offered and the social performance of service providers. In general terms, the findings show a positive impact of clinical leadership on different types of outcome measures, with only a handful of studies highlighting a negative impact on financial and social performance. Therefore, this review lends support to the prevalent move across health systems towards increasing the presence of clinicians in leadership positions in healthcare organisations. Furthermore, we present an explanatory model summarising the reasons offered in the reviewed studies to justify the findings and provide suggestions for future research.