Healthcare Management Forum

This article describes, in a step-by-step way, how the value network concept has been put to work to increase leadership capacity through the Canadian Health Leadership Network (CHLNet). The three phases in evolving the network are described: startup, value creation, and consolidation phases. This is a case study that underscores the fact that networks are best facilitated rather than administered; that trust and reciprocity are the twin pillars for sustaining any network; and that leadership without ownership can be a driving force behind the success of a value network.

This article describes the role of interorganizational networks in chronic disease prevention and an action research agenda for promoting understanding and improvement. Through a model of engaged scholarship, leaders with expertise and experience in chronic disease prevention networks helped shape research directions focused on network value, governance, and evolution. The guiding principles for facilitating this research include applying existing knowledge, developing network-appropriate methods and measures, creating structural change, promoting an impact orientation, and fostering cultural change.

Local health networks were established in 2003 across the province of Quebec as a strategy to make the health system more responsive. This article examines the challenges encountered in the context of this reform and outlines key issues facing network management and governance to achieve the Triple Aim.

Networks that integrate academic and clinical activities are developing across Canada. The University of British Columbia, Department of Emergency Medicine, is leading the planning and implementation of a network that integrates clinician researchers and clinical experts with all practitioners in emergency medicine across the province. The intention is to facilitate emergency practitioners supporting emergency practitioners in remote to tertiary care settings to deliver best practices to patients in all BC emergency departments. The structure and objectives of the network demonstrate how focusing directly on patient-centred care across a large dispersed group of caregivers with common needs can effectively improve care delivery.

For 12 years, a research program has been conducted on “dark networks,” which are both illegal and covert. One of the major findings is that the structure of the network is conditioned by an existential dilemma—the need to act or exist. The more you do of one, the less you can do of the other. This article examines the findings of that research and applies it to the dilemmas of organizing healthcare networks.

Within the Canadian healthcare system, the term population-accountable health network defines the use of collective resources to optimize the health of a population through integrated interventions. The leadership of these networks has also been identified as a critical factor, highlighting the need for creative management of resources in determining effective, balanced sets of interventions. In this article, using specific principles embedded in the Accreditation Canada program, the benefits of a network approach are highlighted, including knowledge sharing, improving the consistency of practice through standards, and a broader systems-and-population view of healthcare delivery across the continuum of care. The implications for Canadian health leaders to leverage the benefits of interorganizational networks are discussed.