Most health care services are provided in the primary health care sector, and an increasing number of elderly is in need of these services. Nonetheless, the research on patient safety culture in home ...care services and nursing homes remains scarce. This study describes staff perceptions of patient safety culture in Norwegian home care services and nursing homes, and assesses how various patient safety culture dimensions contribute to explaining overall perceptions of patient safety.
Cross-sectional surveys were conducted among healthcare professionals in Norwegian home care services (N = 139) and nursing homes (N = 165) in 2018, response rates being 67.5% and 65%, respectively. A Norwegian version of the international recognized Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture was used. Descriptive statistics and t-tests were used to explore staff perceptions of patient safety culture. We used multiple regression analyses to explore the degree to which patient safety culture dimensions could explain overall perceptions of patient safety.
The number of patient safety dimensions having an average score of more than 60% positive responses was seven out of 10 in nursing homes, and nine out of 10 in home care. Staffing had the lowest scores in both health care services. Home care services scored significantly higher than nursing homes on teamwork (eta squared = .053), while nursing homes scored somewhat higher on handover (eta squared = .027). In home care, total explained variance of overall perceptions of patient safety was 45%, with teamwork, staffing, and handoffs as significant predictors. The explained variance in nursing homes was 42.7%, with staffing and communication openness as significant predictors.
There are differences in perceptions of patient safety culture between nursing homes and home care services. Staffing is important for patient safety perceptions in both health care services. In home care, teamwork seems to be a significant contributing factor to patient safety, and building sound teams with mutual trust and collaboration should therefore be an essential part of managers' work with patient safety. In nursing homes, the main focus when building a good patient safety culture should be on open communication, ensuring that staff's ideas and suggestions are valued.
The Quality Improvement Regulation was introduced to the Norwegian healthcare system in 2017 as a new national regulatory framework to support local quality and safety efforts in hospitals. A ...research-based response to this, was to develop a study with the overall research question: How does a new healthcare regulation implemented across three system levels contribute to adaptive capacity in hospital management of quality and safety? Based on development and implementation of the Quality Improvement Regulation, this study aims to synthesize findings across macro, meso, and micro-levels in the Norwegian healthcare system.
The multilevel embedded case study collected data by documents and interviews. A synthesizing approach to findings across subunits was applied in legal dogmatic and qualitative content analysis.
three governmental macro-level bodies, three meso-level County Governors and three micro-level hospitals.
seven macro-level regulators, 12 meso-level chief county medical officers/inspectors and 20 micro-level hospital managers/quality advisers.
Based on a multilevel investigation, three themes were discovered. All system levels considered the Quality Improvement Regulation to facilitate adaptive capacity and recognized contextual flexibility as an important regulatory feature. Participants agreed on uncertainty and variation to hamper the ability to plan and anticipate risk. However, findings identified conflicting views amongst inspectors and hospital managers about their collaboration, with different perceptions of the impact of external inspection. The study found no changes in management- or clinical practices, nor substantial change in the external inspection approach due to the new regulatory framework.
The Quality Improvement Regulation facilitates adaptive capacity, contradicting the assumption that regulation and resilience are "hopeless opposites". However, governmental expectations to implementation and external inspection were not fully linked with changes in hospital management. Thus, the study identified a missing link in the current regime. We suggest that macro, meso and micro-levels should be considered collaborative partners in obtaining system-wide adaptive capacity, to ensure efficient risk regulation in quality improvement and patient safety processes. Further studies on regulatory processes could explore how hospital management and implementation are influenced by regulators', inspectors', and managers' professional backgrounds, positions, and daily trade-offs to adapt to changes and maintain high quality care.
Resilience has become an important topic on the safety research agenda and in organizational practice. Most empirical work on resilience has been descriptive, identifying characteristics of work and ...organizing activity which allow organizations to cope with unexpected situations. Fewer studies have developed testable models and theories that can be used to support interventions aiming to increase resilience and improve safety. In addition, the absent integration of different system levels from individuals, teams, organizations, regulatory bodies, and policy level in theory and practice imply that mechanisms through which resilience is linked across complex systems are not yet well understood. Scientific efforts have been made to develop constructs and models that present relationships; however, these cannot be characterized as sufficient for theory building. There is a need for taking a broader look at resilience practices as a foundation for developing a theoretical framework that can help improve safety in complex systems. This book does not advocate for one definition or one field of research when talking about resilience; it does not assume that the use of resilience concepts is necessarily positive for safety. We encourage a broad approach, seeking inspiration across different scientific and practical domains for the purpose of further developing resilience at a theoretical and an operational level of relevance for different high-risk industries. The aim of the book is twofold: 1. To explore different approaches for operationalization of resilience across scientific disciplines and system levels. 2. To create a theoretical foundation for a resilience framework across scientific disciplines and system levels. By presenting chapters from leading international authors representing different research disciplines and practical fields we develop suggestions and inspiration for the research community and practitioners in high-risk industries. This book is Open Access under a CC-BY licence. ; Explores different approaches for operationalization of resilience across scientific disciplines and system levels Creates a theoretical foundation for a resilience framework across scientific disciplines and system levels Develops suggestions and inspiration for the research community and practitioners in high-risk industries Presents chapters from leading international authors representing different research disciplines and practical fields
Management, culture and systems for better quality and patient safety in hospitals have been widely studied in Norway. Nursing homes and home care, however have received much less attention. An ...increasing number of people need health services in nursing homes and at home, and the services are struggling with fragmentation of care, discontinuity and restricted resource availability. The aim of the study was to explore the current challenges in quality and safety work as perceived by managers and employees in nursing homes and home care services.
The study is a multiple explorative case study of two nursing homes and two home care services in Norway. Managers and employees participated in focus groups and individual interviews. The data material was analyzed using directed content analysis guided by the theoretical framework 'Organizing for Quality', focusing on the work needed to meet quality and safety challenges.
Challenges in quality and safety work were interrelated and depended on many factors. In addition, they often implied trade-offs for both managers and employees. Managers struggled to maintain continuity of care due to sick leave and continuous external-facilitated change processes. Employees struggled with heavier workloads and fewer resources, resulting in less time with patients and poorer quality of patient care. The increased external pressure affected the possibility to work towards engagement and culture for improvement, and to maintain quality and safety as a collective effort at managerial and employee levels.
Despite contextual differences due to the structure, size, nature and location of the nursing homes and home care services, the challenges were similar across settings. Our study indicates a dualistic contextual dimension. Understanding contextual factors is central for targeting improvement interventions to specific settings. Context is, however, not independent from the work that managers do; it can be and is acted upon in negotiations and interactions to better support managers' and employees' work on quality and safety in nursing homes and home care.
Certain factors contribute to healthcare professionals' adaptive capacities towards risks, challenges, and changes such as attitudes, stress, motivation, cognitive capacity, group norms, and ...teamwork. However, there is limited evidence as to factors that contribute to healthcare professionals' adaptive capacity towards hospital standardization. This scoping review aimed to identify and map the factors contributing to healthcare professionals' adaptive capacity with hospital standardization.
Scoping review methodology was used. We searched six academic databases to September 2021 for peer-reviewed articles in English. We also reviewed grey literature sources and the reference lists of included studies. Quantitative and qualitative studies were included if they focused on factors influencing how healthcare professionals adapted towards hospital standardization such as guidelines, procedures, and strategies linked to clinical practice. Two researchers conducted a three-stage screening process and extracted data on study characteristics, hospital standardization practices and factors contributing to healthcare professionals' adaptive capacity. Study quality was not assessed.
A total of 57 studies were included. Factors contributing to healthcare professionals' adaptive capacity were identified in numerous standardization practices ranging from hand hygiene and personal protective equipment to clinical guidelines or protocols on for example asthma, pneumonia, antimicrobial prophylaxis, or cancer. The factors were grouped in eight categories: (1) psychological and emotional, (2) cognitive, (3) motivational, (4) knowledge and experience, (5) professional role, (6) risk management, (7) patient and family, and (8) work relationships. This combination of individual and group/social factors decided whether healthcare professionals complied with or adapted hospital standardization efforts. Contextual factors were identified related to guideline system, cultural norms, leadership support, physical environment, time, and workload.
The literature on healthcare professionals' adaptive capacity towards hospital standardization is varied and reflect different reasons for compliance or non-compliance to rules, guidelines, and protocols. The knowledge of individual and group/social factors and the role of contextual factors should be used by hospitals to improve standardization practices through educational efforts, individualised training and motivational support. The influence of patient and family factors on healthcare professionals' adaptive capacity should be investigated.
Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/ev7az ) https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/EV7AZ .
Abstract
Background
The Covid-19 pandemic introduced a global crisis for the healthcare systems. Research has paid particular attention to hospitals and intensive care units. However, nursing homes ...and home care services in charge of a highly vulnerable group of patients have also been forced to adapt and transform to ensure the safety of patients and staff; yet they have not received enough research attention. This paper aims to explore how leaders in nursing homes and home care services used innovative solutions to handle the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure resilient performance during times of disruption and major challenges.
Methods
A qualitative exploratory case study was used to understand the research question. The selected case was a large city municipality in Norway. This specific municipality was heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic; therefore, information from this municipality allowed us to gather rich information. Data were collected from documents, semi-structured interviews, and a survey. At the first interview phase, informants included 13 leaders, Head of nursing home (1 participant), Head of Sec. (4 participants), Quality manager (4 participants), Head of nursing home ward (3 participants), and a Professional development nurse (1 participant), at 13 different nursing homes and home care services.
At the second phase, an online survey was distributed at 16 different nursing homes and home care services to expand our understanding of the phenomenon from other leaders within the case municipality. Twenty-two leaders responded to the survey. The full dataset was analysed in accordance with inductive thematic analysis methodology.
Results
The empirical results from the analysis provide a new understanding of how nursing homes and home care leaders used innovative solutions to maintain appropriate care for infected and non-infected patients at their sites. The results showed that innovative solutions could be separated into technology for communication and remote care, practice innovations, service innovations, and physical innovations.
Conclusion
This study offers a new understanding of the influence of crisis-driven innovation for resilience in healthcare during the Covid-19 pandemic. Nursing home and home care leaders implemented several innovative solutions to ensure resilient performance during the first 6–9 months of the pandemic. In terms of resilience, different innovative solutions can be divided based on their influence into situational, structural, and systemic resilience. A framework for bridging innovative solutions and their influence on resilience in healthcare is outlined in the paper.
Aim
To assess the relationship between transformational leadership, job demands, job resources, patient safety culture and work engagement in home care services.
Design
Cross‐sectional survey.
...Methods
Healthcare professionals in Norwegian home care services participated in the study (N = 139). Multiple regression analyses with patient safety culture and work engagement as outcomes and transformational leadership, job demands, job resources as predictors were conducted.
Results
The transformational leadership model explained 35.7% of the variance in patient safety culture. Adding job demands and resources and work engagement to the model increased the explained variance to 53.5%. The job resource “skill utilization” was the strongest predictor of work engagement. The full model with all predictor variables explained 28.2% of work engagement.
Conclusion
Transformational leadership has a significant impact on patient safety culture and work engagement in home care services. Employees' perceptions of job demands, available resources and engagement also affect patient safety culture.
Patient centeredness is an important component of patient care and healthcare quality. Several scales exist to measure patient centeredness, and previous literature provides a critical appraisal of ...their measurement properties. However, limited knowledge exists regarding the content of the various scales in terms of what type of patient centeredness they represent and how they can be used for quality improvement. The aim of this study was to explore the measurement properties of patient centeredness scales and their content with a special focus on patient involvement, and assess whether and how they can be used for quality improvement.
A systematic review of patient centeredness scales was conducted in Medline, CINAHL, Embase, and SCOPUS in April and May 2017. Inclusion criteria were limited to articles written in English published from 2005 to 2017. Eligible studies were critically appraised in terms of internal consistency and reliability, as well as their content, structural, and cross-cultural validity. Type of studies included were scale-development articles and validation studies of relevant scales, with healthcare personnel as respondents. We used directed content analysis to categorize the scales and items according to Tritter's conceptual framework for patient and public involvement.
Eleven scales reported in 22 articles were included. Most scales represented individual, indirect, and reactive patient involvement. Most scales included items that did not reflect patient centeredness directly, but rather organizational preconditions for patient centered practices. None of the scales included items explicitly reflecting the use of patient experiences of quality improvement.
There is a lack of patient centeredness scales focusing on direct and proactive involvement of patients in quality improvement. It would be useful to develop such instruments to further study the role of patient involvement in quality improvement in healthcare. Furthermore, they could be used as important tools in quality improvement interventions.
Understanding the resilience of healthcare is critically important. A resilient healthcare system might be expected to consistently deliver high quality care, withstand disruptive events and ...continually adapt, learn and improve. However, there are many different theories, models and definitions of resilience and most are contested and debated in the literature. Clear and unambiguous conceptual definitions are important for both theoretical and practical considerations of any phenomenon, and resilience is no exception. A large international research programme on Resilience in Healthcare (RiH) is seeking to address these issues in a 5-year study across Norway, England, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan, and Switzerland (2018-2023). The aims of this debate paper are: 1) to identify and select core operational concepts of resilience from the literature in order to consider their contributions, implications, and boundaries for researching resilience in healthcare; and 2) to propose a working definition of healthcare resilience that underpins the international RiH research programme.
To fulfil these aims, first an overview of three core perspectives or metaphors that underpin theories of resilience are introduced from ecology, engineering and psychology. Second, we present a brief overview of key definitions and approaches to resilience applicable in healthcare. We position our research program with collaborative learning and user involvement as vital prerequisite pillars in our conceptualisation and operationalisation of resilience for maintaining quality of healthcare services. Third, our analysis addresses four core questions that studies of resilience in healthcare need to consider when defining and operationalising resilience. These are: resilience 'for what', 'to what', 'of what', and 'through what'? Finally, we present our operational definition of resilience.
The RiH research program is exploring resilience as a multi-level phenomenon and considers adaptive capacity to change as a foundation for high quality care. We, therefore, define healthcare resilience as: the capacity to adapt to challenges and changes at different system levels, to maintain high quality care. This working definition of resilience is intended to be comprehensible and applicable regardless of the level of analysis or type of system component under investigation.
Home-based healthcare is considered crucial for the sustainability of healthcare systems worldwide. In the homecare context, however, adverse events may occur due to error-prone medication management ...processes and prevalent healthcare-associated infections, falls, and pressure ulcers. When dealing with risks in any form, it is fundamental for leaders to build a shared situational awareness of what is going on and what is at stake to achieve a good outcome. The overall aim of this study was to gain empirical knowledge of leaders' risk perception and adaptive capacity in homecare services.
The study applied a multiple case study research design. We investigated risk perception, leadership, sensemaking, and decision-making in the homecare services context in three Norwegian municipalities. Twenty-three leaders were interviewed. The data material was analyzed using thematic analysis and interpreted in a resilience perspective of work-as-imagined versus work-as-done.
There is an increased demand on homecare services and workers' struggle to meet society's high expectations regarding homecare's responsibilities. The leaders find themselves trying to maneuver in these pressing conditions in alignment with the perceived risks. The themes emerging from analyzed data were: 'Risk and quality are conceptualized as integral to professional work', 'Perceiving and assessing risk imply discussing and consulting each other- no one can do it alone' and 'Leaders keep calm and look beyond the budget and quality measures by maneuvering within and around the system'. Different perspectives on patients' well-being revealed that the leaders have a large responsibility for organizing the healthcare soundly and adequately for each home-dwelling patient. Although the leaders did not use the term risk, discussing concerns and consulting each other was a profound part of the homecare leaders' sense of professionalism.
The leaders' construction of a risk picture is based on using multiple signals, such as measurable vital signs and patients' verbal and nonverbal expressions of their experience of health status. The findings imply a need for more research on how national guidelines and quality measures can be implemented better in a resilience perspective, where adaptive capacity to better align work-as-imagined and work-as-done is crucial for high quality homecare service provision.
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