title: Leadership collaboration during health reform: an action learning approach with an interagency group of executives in Tasmania.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To use an action learning approach to encourage a group of executive leaders, responsible for the implementation of a state health reform agenda, to consider the leadership required to drive improvement in healthcare services.
  
  
  METHODS
  Based on an assertion that knowledge is co-produced and that deliberative and structured conversation can be a mechanism to drive change, an action learning approach was used to facilitate an interagency group of executive leaders, responsible for the implementation of a state health reform agenda, who were encouraged to consider the leadership required to drive improvement in healthcare services.
  
  
  RESULTS
  It was difficult to assert how the group contributed specifically to the implementation of the health reform agenda but individuals gained insights and there was informal resolution of institutional tensions and differences. The method may provide new knowledge to the reform process over time.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Getting the participants together was challenging, which may reflect the reality of time-poor executives, or a low commitment to giving time to structured and deliberative informal dialogue. Further work is required to test this thesis and the action learning approach with other parts of healthcare workforce.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health and Human Services, Australia. siobhan.harpur@dhhs.tas.gov.au
authors.forename: Siobhan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Harpur
mesh_terms: D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006270:Health Facility Administrators / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006284:Health Plan Implementation / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D007857:Leadership; D013648:Tasmania