Educating advanced level practice within complex health care workplace environments through transformational practice development

Summary he past 20 years health care reform has influenced the development of advanced level practitioner roles and expectations. How advanced level practitioners work to survive the highly stimulating, yet sometimes overwhelming aspects of balancing high quality provision with political reform agendas, amidst economic constraint is considered. Transformational approaches (encompassing education and practice led service development) can provide, promote and ‘provoke’ a harnessing of complex issues workplace environment to produce creative solutions. Transformational Practice Development provides a structured, rigorous, systematic approach that practitioners, teams and health care consumers alike can utilise to achieve skills and attributes needed for successful innovation. The authors present case study materials from action orientated locally delivered Practice Development, as a complex strategic intervention approach to influence and promote advanced level practice expertise. Initiated through facilitation of transformational leadership, and resultant team based improvements, we present how strategic collaborative processes can harness work chaos and complexity to provide sustainable and productive workplace cultures of effectiveness.