Leading the Emergency Department as a Complex Adaptive System

Abstract

This chapter introduces an approach to facilitate the use of concepts and methodologies from Systems and Complexity Sciences into the realm of Health Sciences. Health care is a convoluted system with many interdependencies of people, resources, and processes. Recently the use of Systems and Complexity Sciences has been proposed as a viable methodology to better understand and manage the challenges in the healthcare system. Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) is a branch of Systems and Complexity Sciences that brings a different perspective to lead the healthcare organization. We discuss the identification and application of CAS principles to the administration and leadership of the healthcare organization. The Emergency Department is utilized as a case study to identify and analyse the application of CAS concepts. The case study facilitates the understanding of the CAS concepts and their applicability to other healthcare organizations and departments.