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1 – 10 of over 10000Simone Fanelli, Lorenzo Pratici, Fiorella Pia Salvatore, Chiara Carolina Donelli and Antonello Zangrandi
This study aims to provide a picture of the current state of art in the use of big data for decision-making processes for the management of health-care organizations.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to provide a picture of the current state of art in the use of big data for decision-making processes for the management of health-care organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic literature review was carried out. The research uses two analyses: descriptive analysis, describing the evolution of citations; keywords; and the ten most influential papers, and bibliometric analysis, for content evaluation, for which a cluster analysis was performed.
Findings
A total of 48 articles were selected for bibliographic coupling out of an initial sample of more than 5,000 papers. Of the 48 articles, 29 are linked on the basis of their bibliography. Clustering the 29 articles on the basis of actual content, four research areas emerged: quality of care, quality of service, crisis management and data management.
Originality/value
Health-care organizations believe strongly that big data can become the most effective tool for correctly influencing the decision-making processes. Thus, more and more organizations continue to invest in big data analytics, and the literature on this topic has expanded rapidly. This study seeks to provide a comprehensive picture of the different streams of literature existing, together with gaps in research and future perspectives. The literature is mature enough for an analysis to be made and provide managers with useful insights on opportunities, criticisms and perspectives on the use of big data for health-care organizations. However, to date, there is no comprehensive literature review on the big data analysis in health care. Furthermore, as big data is a “sexy catchphrase,” more clarity on its usage may be needed. It represents an important tool to be investigated and its great potential is often yet to be discovered. This study thus sheds light on emerging issues and suggests further research that may be needed.
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As part of a national plan to govern professional and organizational development in Norwegian specialist healthcare, the country’s hospital clinics are tasked with constructing…
Abstract
Purpose
As part of a national plan to govern professional and organizational development in Norwegian specialist healthcare, the country’s hospital clinics are tasked with constructing development plans. Using the development plan as a case, the paper analyzes how managers navigate and legitimize the planning process among central actors and deals with the contingency of decisions in such strategy work.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applies a qualitative research design using a case study method. The material consists of public documents, observations and single interviews, covering the process of constructing a development plan at the clinical level.
Findings
The findings suggest that the development plan was shaped through a multilevel translation process consisting of different contending rationalities. At the clinical level, the management had difficulties in legitimizing the process. The underlying tension between top-down and bottom-up steering challenged involvement and made it difficult to manage the contingency of decisions.
Practical implications
The findings are relevant to public sector managers working on strategy documents and policymakers identifying challenges that might hinder the fulfillment of political intentions.
Originality/value
This paper draws on a case from Norway; however, the findings are of general interest. The study contributes to the academic discussion on how to consider both the health authorities’ perspective and the organizational perspective to understand the manager’s role in handling the contingency of decisions and managing paradoxes in the decision-making process.
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Maria Qvarfordt and Stefan Lagrosen
Previous research has identified associations between quality management and employee health. This study's purpose was to (1) examine those associations in a public healthcare…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous research has identified associations between quality management and employee health. This study's purpose was to (1) examine those associations in a public healthcare organisation and (2) explore and describe the association between digitalisation and employee health.
Design/methodology/approach
An online questionnaire including indices to measure quality management values, employee health and digitalisation was answered by 118 managers in Swedish public healthcare. Correlation analysis was used to analyse the data. Based on the survey results, 12 qualitative, in-depth interviews were conducted with healthcare managers.
Findings
The findings show that employee health is associated with quality management and digitalisation. Categories were defined to describe the managers' views of the relationship between digitalisation and health.
Research limitations/implications
Causality was not explicitly tested and cannot be assumed. However, the results strengthen the body of research showing that quality management is related to employee health, and associations between health and digitalisation were identified.
Practical implications
The findings and model should be helpful for healthcare managers in a digitalising environment who aim to preserve or enhance employee health whilst ensuring high service quality.
Originality/value
The results were used to create an integrated conceptual model depicting the association between quality, digitalisation and health. This association has not previously been studied.
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Marta Piria, Mara Gorli and Giuseppe Scaratti
The study refers to a health-care organization engaged in adopting “home health care” as a new object of activity. This study aims to explore how the reconfiguration of the object…
Abstract
Purpose
The study refers to a health-care organization engaged in adopting “home health care” as a new object of activity. This study aims to explore how the reconfiguration of the object influences the transformative perspective, affecting not just a service but a broader approach and meaning behind patient care. It also investigates the main contradictions at play and the levers to support inter-organizational learning while facing the new challenges and change processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The work is based on a qualitative and ethnographic methodology directed to examine cultural, practical and socio-material aspects. The activity theory is assumed as a powerful approach to understand collective learning and distributed agency processes.
Findings
The renewal of the new object of work is analyzed as a trigger for shifts in representations, cultural processes and collective support implemented by the organization. Three agentic trajectories – technical, dialogical and collaborative agency – were cultivated by the management to deliver home health care through joint exercises of coordination and control, dialogical spaces and collaborative process.
Research limitations/implications
The data collection was disrupted by the pandemic. A follow-up study would be beneficial to inquire how the learning processes shifted or were influenced by the contextual changes.
Practical implications
This contribution provides a practical framework for health-care organizations aiming to navigate and explore the physiological tensions and contradictions emerging when the object of work is changed.
Originality/value
The paper develops the field of intra- and inter-organizational learning by presenting an intertwined and structural connection between these processes and the renewing of the object of work. It advises that processes of transformation must be handled with attention to the critical and collective dynamics that accompany sustainable and situated changes.
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Roy Liff and Ewa Wikström
The purpose of this paper is to investigate and theoretically explain how line managers and lower-status experts work together in public health-care organizations. Hence, this…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate and theoretically explain how line managers and lower-status experts work together in public health-care organizations. Hence, this study explores how lower-status experts influence line managers' decision-making and task prioritizing in order to guide staff experts' cooperation and performance improvements.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a qualitative method for data collection and analysis of the experts' and line managers' explanations about their cooperation. A theoretical approach of experts' identity positioning, in terms of differences and similarities, was used in analyzing the interaction between managers and experts.
Findings
This study shows that similarities and differences in positioning acts exist simultaneously. Similarity is constructed by way of strategic and professional alignment with the line managers' core tasks. Differences stem from the distinction between knowledge-grounded skills and professional attributes such as language, analytical tools, and jargon. Lower-status experts need to leave their entrenched positions and match the professional status of line managers in both knowledge aspirations and appearance to reach a respected approach of experts' identity positioning.
Originality/value
Unlike many previous studies, this study demonstrates that similarities and differences in positioning acts exist simultaneously.
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Relinde De Koeijer, Jaap Paauwe, Robbert Huijsman and Mathilde Strating
This study aims to examine the effect of human resource management (HRM) in mitigating negative effects of Lean management and Six Sigma (LM&SS) on employee well-being in health…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the effect of human resource management (HRM) in mitigating negative effects of Lean management and Six Sigma (LM&SS) on employee well-being in health care. The authors subdivide well-being into three components: happiness, trust and health.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a cross-sectional, multisite survey study in internal service units of hospitals. Data analyzed using multivariate regression come from a sample of 1,886 survey respondents (42 units, N = 218 supervisors, N = 1,668 employees) in eight Dutch academic hospitals that have implemented LM&SS.
Findings
The present study findings show no or weak effects of LM&SS on the happiness and health component of employee well-being. In addition, the authors found a significant but weak direct positive effect (ß = 0.07) of the LM&SS bundle on the trusting relationships component of well-being. Therefore, moderating effects of HRM practices on the relationship between LM&SS and employee well-being seem less relevant because an existing relationship between LM&SS and employee well-being is a prerequisite for moderation (Hayes, 2009). There were unexpected side effects. Inspired by research that discusses direct effects of HRM on employee well-being, the authors tested this relationship and found that HRM has a direct positive effect on trust and happiness of employees in health care. For the health component of well-being, the present results show a weak negative effect of HRM.
Practical implications
This study results in a cautiously optimistic view about LM&SS in health care, provided that it is applied in a targeted manner (to improve the performance of their processes) and that HRM is strategically aligned with the goals of LM&SS to improve employees’ happiness and trusting relationships.
Originality/value
Unique features of the study are the focus on the consequences for employees’ well-being related to LM&SS in health care, the role of HRM in regard to this relationship and the participation of all eight Dutch academic hospitals in this research.
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Antti Ylitalo, Elina Laukka, Tarja Heponiemi and Outi Ilona Kanste
The purpose of this study is to describe primary health-care managers’ perceptions of management competencies at different management levels in digital health services using the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to describe primary health-care managers’ perceptions of management competencies at different management levels in digital health services using the management competency assessment program as a framework.
Design/methodology/approach
A secondary analysis study involving 21 semi-structured individual interviews was conducted among Finnish primary health-care managers at different management levels (frontline, middle and senior). The deductive framework method was used to analyze the data.
Findings
Similarities and differences were found in management competencies between different levels of management. Competencies related to the use of digitalization were highlighted by managers at all management levels. Managers at all management levels were involved in developing digital solutions and supporting employees in using digital solutions in their work. Frontline and middle managers emphasized more issues related to day-to-day management and communication with employees, whereas senior managers highlighted the management of large entities.
Research limitations/implications
In the secondary analysis, data were used for purposes other than originally intended. Therefore, the data are subject to limitations of the methodology applied and should be transferred to other contexts with caution.
Practical implications
Identifying the management competencies needed to manage digital health services is important to target managers’ training according to needs in the future.
Social implications
The results could be used to develop the management of digital health services, as well as improve digital health services and their deployment.
Originality/value
Previous literature mostly examined managers’ informatics competencies and paid little attention to other management competencies. This study discusses more broadly the management competencies that digital health services require from managers at different levels of management.
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Russell Mannion, Frederick Hassan Konteh and Rowena Jacobs
This study aims to compare and contrast the core organisational processes across high and low performing mental health providers in the English National Health Service (NHS).
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to compare and contrast the core organisational processes across high and low performing mental health providers in the English National Health Service (NHS).
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study qualitative design incorporating a full sample of low and high performing mental health providers.
Findings
This study suggests that the organisational approaches used to govern and manage mental health providers are associated with their performance, and the study’s findings give clues as to what areas might need attention. They include, but are not limited to: developing appropriate governance frameworks and organisational cultures, ensuring that staff across the organisation feel “psychologically safe” and able to speak up when they see things that are going wrong; a focus on enhancing quality of services rather than prioritising cost-reduction; investing in new technology and digital applications; and nurturing positive inter-organisational relationships across the local health economy.
Originality/value
Highlights considerable divergence in organisation and management practices that are associated with the performance of mental health trusts in the English NHS
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Hui Huang, Daniele Leone, Andrea Caporuscio and Sascha Kraus
The present article aims at rising stream of literature about intellectual capital in healthcare organizations, by exploring how knowledge-based activities are designed to promote…
Abstract
Purpose
The present article aims at rising stream of literature about intellectual capital in healthcare organizations, by exploring how knowledge-based activities are designed to promote innovation and create value. This process concerns not only buyers and sellers of industrial products/services but, more widely, larger networks of healthcare actors which include patients, payers and health institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
To answer the research question, we adopted a conceptual approach aimed at reaching overall comprehension of healthcare innovation mechanisms. We have tracked the pivotal extant studies for catching the roots and dynamics at the base of diffusion of healthcare innovation. This article demonstrates, based on previous literature and theoretical speculations, the contribution that innovative knowledge-based activities (e.g. market access approach) make to intellectual capital in healthcare organizations to promote innovation and create value.
Findings
The results show that three knowledge-based activities of the healthcare ecosystem shape the basis of the proposed conceptual framework. First, a value co-creation strategy to develop capabilities for each health stakeholder is intended as human capital. Second, the market access approach to promote innovation is reported to the relational capital. Third, a digital servitization strategy is referred to the structural capital.
Research limitations/implications
This paper provides implications for the stream of literature about intellectual capital in healthcare organizations. It aims at exploring three knowledge-based activities as value co-creation, market access and digital servitization that respond to different intellectual capital levels components (human, relational, structural).
Originality/value
This article provides a conceptual framework based on the linkage of two fundamental streams of management studies, which correspond to innovation diffusion and intellectual capital management. This offers a more solid conceptualization for managing intellectual capital in healthcare organizations with respect to previous studies and creates value in the ecosystem.
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