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Leadership in Serbian healthcare system
Leadership in Serbian healthcare system

Author(s): Nataša Sokolov Milovančević, Aleksandar Gračanac, Ana Kitić
Subject(s): Business Economy / Management, Health and medicine and law
Published by: Društvo ekonomista "Ekonomika" Niš
Keywords: health systems; management; leadership; medical education

Summary/Abstract: Background/Aim. To discuss current challenges and future perspectives in order to initiate a debate on the introduction of leadership in Serbia’s health care system. The ultimate goal of the review is to provide a ground work on which future standardized training and credentialing curriculum could be based on. The PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched in December 2017 and January 2018 for scientific papers written in English using the keywords: health systems, management, leadership, medical education. Health care issues have been the subject of intense scientific discussions around the world for the past two decades. Most attention is drawn to the efforts of interested countries to find the most effective way of managing complex health care systems. There is evidence that management is important and that in successful management, the effects are correlated with management practices and promoted values. The situation where heads of health care teams of large clinical systems in Serbia are physicians, requires more attention to be paid to managerial and leadership skills. Clinical quality depends on employee team work, therefore leadership and management skills are necessary at all levels. The development of leadership competencies must be an integral part of the training and education of doctors in Serbia. There is currently a great necessity of a standardized curriculum to be developed and applied with training and certification of current and future leaders.