Healthcare leaders’ views on successful quality improvement initiatives and context
Journal of Health Organization and Management
ISSN: 1477-7266
Article publication date: 20 March 2017
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contextual factors contributing to the sustainability of healthcare quality improvement (QI) initiatives.
Design/methodology/approach
Themes from semi-structured interviews with international healthcare leaders are compared with Kaplan and Provost et al.’s (2012) model for understanding success in quality (MUSIQ). Critical success factors within these themes are shown in detail.
Findings
The interviews provide a rich source of information on critical success factors. The themes largely correspond with MUSIQ, reinforcing its robustness. An important factor emerging from the interviews was the importance of engagement with patients and families in QI, and this needs consideration in seeking to understand context in QI.
Research limitations/implications
Interview participants represent a limited set of western countries and health systems. Their experiences may not hold true in other settings.
Practical implications
The detail on critical success factors provides QI practitioners with guidance on designing and implementing sustainable initiatives.
Originality/value
Including consideration of contextual factors for engagement with patients and families in frameworks for context in QI appears to be an original idea that will add value to such frameworks. Researchers in patient engagement are starting to address contextual factors and connections should be made with this work.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Mataroria Lyndon (currently at the School of Public Health, Harvard) and Frances Cullinane (currently at the Waitemata District Health Board) assisted with the interviews from which data are drawn. Counties Manukau Health funded the initial study from which this interview data are drawn, but not the reanalysis, findings, or conclusions presented here.
Citation
Barson, S., Doolan-Noble, F., Gray, J. and Gauld, R. (2017), "Healthcare leaders’ views on successful quality improvement initiatives and context", Journal of Health Organization and Management, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 54-63. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHOM-10-2016-0191
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited