Healthcare innovation and leadership in non-profit organisations: past, present and future trends

Non-profit healthcare organisations (NPHO's) serve a heterogeneous population, from the elderly in nursing homes to people with mental disorders or children and young people with chronic illnesses. Given the fast changing context in which they operate, their innovative capacity becomes a key element of their intervention. Thus, the way in which leadership is exercised has a major influence on the innovation results. Given the fragmentation on this topic, this study aimed at conducting a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). This SLR identified a total of 243 original articles published between 1985 and 2023, and, through a bibliometric analysis using the RStudio ' s Bibliometrix software, identified the different aspects between innovation and leadership in NPHO ' s present in the literature. Four main clusters were identified: innovation management in NPHO ' s - facilitators and obstacles; innovation and organisational performance - the centrality of the user and the quality of services; leadership as a vector of innovation; affective aspects and the performance of NPHO ' s. A conceptual model is proposed, the gaps are identified, such as future lines of research emerge from the results obtained. This SLR is intended to be a document that may support practical changes in the context that promote innovation in NPHO ' s.