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The prevention of mental health issues at work represents a significant challenge for organizations. The transformation of workplaces whose future promises to be virtual or hybrid can make the anticipation and prevention of these health issues more challenging, considering the potential distance that it may create between employees and their employers. The recent health crisis undermined individual mental health but also highlighted the importance of new technologies which greatly paved the way for the future of workplaces. This paper aims to examine these new technologies, specifically the use of blockchain technologies in organizations to predict and prevent mental health issues at work, specifically psychological distress, in times of crisis, and beyond. It addresses the main challenges and opportunities and presents research avenues as well as insights for human resource management (HRM) practitioners.

This paper is a viewpoint that addresses the use of blockchain technology in the prevention of employees’ mental health at work in times of crisis and beyond. Literature was used to support this viewpoint and highlight the importance of addressing mental health issues at work and preventing their occurrence in the future.

Blockchain is one of the disruptive new technologies that can be used as a strategic tool for organizations to prevent mental health issues among employees in the workplace in times of crisis, and beyond. It facilitates the collaboration between employees, their organization, healthcare and employee assistance program (EPA) providers, as well as insurance companies. In this context, a specific type of blockchain should be used to support this type of collaboration.

Blockchain can generate both opportunities and challenges for the prevention of mental issues at work. It can transform the future of workplaces and help organizations as well as healthcare and EPA providers to anticipate potential employees’ mental health issues in 2019. Organizations need to address their readiness to implement this new technology and the possible reluctance of their employees to use it. This paper presents insights for managers and HRM practitioners.

The studies that have addressed the use of blockchain in organizations to prevent employees’ mental health issues are sparse. This paper is an attempt to address this gap and examine the challenges as well as the opportunities associated with the use of this disruptive new technology that can significantly reshape the future of workplaces.

This study aims to apply the Delphi method to explore the possibilities for implementing agility management concepts in Slovenian health-care organisations.

The research is based on a qualitative Delphi study encompassing 15 employees in different Slovenian health-care organisations.

Slovenian health-care organisations need to be more agile currently. For this reason, it is necessary to begin with organisational changes and organisational learning concepts to educate employees about the meaning and content of agile processes. It is essential to ensure that accepting employee mistakes and offering help to employees becomes normal practice, and it is necessary to ensure the greater trust of the management towards the employees.

The research empowers health-care professionals with new management and leadership concepts, such as agile management, sustainable leadership and leadership development methods in health care.

This paper aims to “identify,” “analyse” and “categorise” the readiness factors of lean sustainability in health-care organisation using total interpretive structural modelling (TISM).

To obtain the data, a closed-ended questionnaire was used in addition to a scheduled interview. To identify how the factors interact, the TISM approach was used, and the matriced’ impacts croise’s multiplication applique’e a UN classement (MICMAC) analysis was used to rank and categorise the lean sustainability readiness factors.

This study identified ten lean sustainability readiness factors for health-care organisation. The identified factors are resources utilization practice (F1), management commitment and leadership (F2), operational flexibility (F3), workforce engagement and time commitment (F4), sustainability motivational factors (F5), awareness of lean and sustainable practice (F6), hospital design (F7), energy efficiency practices in hospitals (F8), responsible autonomy (F9) and new system adoptability training (F10). The key/driving factors are identified in this study are operational flexibility, sustainability motivational factors, management commitment and leadership, new system adoptability training.

The study focussed primarily on lean sustainability factors for the health-care sector.

This research will aid key stakeholders and academics in the better understanding the readiness factors that influence lean sustainability in health-care organisation. This study emphasises the factors that must be considered when applying lean sustainable practices in health care as a real-world application in a health-care organisation. These readiness factors for lean sustainability can be used by an organization to comprehend more about the concept and the components that contribute to health-care lean sustainability.

This study proposes the TISM technique for health care, which is a novel attempt in the subject of lean sustainability in this sector.

The various quality improvement (QI) frameworks and maturity models described in the health services literature consider some aspects of QI while excluding others. This paper aims to present a concerted attempt to create a quality improvement maturity model (QIMM) derived from holistic principles underlying the successful implementation of system-wide QI programmes.

A hybrid methodology involving a systematic review (Phase 1) of over 270 empirical research articles and books developed the basis for the proposed QIMM. It was followed by expert interviews to refine the core constructs and ground the proposed QIMM in contemporary QI practice (Phase 2). The experts included academics in two academic conferences and 59 QI managers from the New Zealand health-care system. In-depth interviews were conducted with QI managers to ascertain their views on the QIMM and its applicability in their respective health organisations (HOs).

The QIMM consists of four dimensions of organisational maturity, namely, strategic, process, supply chain and philosophical maturity. These dimensions progress through six stages, namely, identification, ad-hoc, formal, process-driven, optimised enterprise and finally a way of life. The application of the QIMM by the QI managers revealed that the scope of QI and the breadth of the principles adopted by the QI managers and their HOs in New Zealand is limited.

The importance of QI in health systems cannot be overstated. The proposed QIMM can help HOs diagnose their current state and provide a guide to action achieving a desirable state of quality improvement maturity. This QIMM avoids reliance on any single QI methodology. HOs – using the QIMM – should retain full control over the process of selecting any QI methodology or may even cherry-pick principles to suit their needs as long as they understand and appreciate the true nature and scope of quality overstated. The proposed QIMM can help HOs diagnose their current state and provide a guide to action achieving a desirable state of quality improvement maturity. This QIMM avoids reliance on any single QI methodology. HOs – using the QIMM – should retain full control over the process of selecting any QI methodology or may even cherry-pick principles to suit their needs as long as they understand and appreciate the true nature and scope of quality.

This paper contributes new knowledge by presenting a maturity model with an integrated set of quality principles for HOs and their extended supply networks.

Patient-centric exchanges, a major type of Health Information Exchange (HIE), empower patients to aggregate and manage their health information. This exchange model helps patients access, modify and share their medical information with multiple healthcare organizations. Although existing studies examine patient engagement, more research is required to investigate patients' attitudes and willingness to play an active role in patient-centered information exchange. The study's main objective is to develop a model based on the belief-attitude-intention paradigm to empirically examine the effects of patients' attitudes toward engagement in care on their willingness to participate in patient-centric HIE.

The authors conducted an online survey study to identify the antecedents and consequences of patients' attitudes toward engagement in care. To empirically test the research model, the authors collected data from a national sample (n = 357) of individuals in the United States. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The proposed model categorizes the antecedents to patients' attitudes toward engagement in patient-related and healthcare system factors. The results show that patient-related factors (perceived health literacy and perceived coping ability) and health system factors (perceived experience with the healthcare organization and perceived patient-provider interaction) significantly shape patient attitude toward care management engagement. The results indicate that patients' attitudes toward engaging in their healthcare significantly contribute to their willingness to participate in medical information sharing through patient-centric HIE initiatives. Moreover, the authors’ findings also demonstrate that the link between patient engagement and willingness to participate in HIE is stronger for individuals who perceive lower levels of privacy and security concerns.

The authors validate the proposed model explaining patients' perceptions about their characteristics and the healthcare system significantly influence their attitude toward engaging in their care. This study also suggests that patients' favorable attitude toward engagement can bring patient-centric HIE efforts onto a path to success. The authors’ research attempts to shed light on the importance of patients' roles in adopting patient-centric HIE initiatives. Theoretical and practical contributions of this study are noticeable since they could result in a deeper understanding of the concept of patient engagement and how it may affect healthcare services in an evolving digital world. The authors’ findings can help healthcare organizations provide public citizen-centric services by introducing user-oriented approaches in healthcare delivery systems.

This study aims to extend the literature on psychological contracts, employee mental health, self-control and equity sensitivity among employees in Ghana.

Data for this study came from a sample of 484 employees from an organisation in the telecommunication sector of Ghana. The details of the study were discussed with employees after which they were given the choice to participate in the study.

The present study found that psychological contract breach is directly associated with mental health and indirectly related to mental health through equity sensitivity and self-control.

The findings suggest that psychological contracts are important aspects of the employment relationship that could be used to enhance employee mental health. Furthermore, enhancing employees’ self-control and resolving issues of individuals high on equity sensitivity are effective ways that organisations can deploy to sustain mental health in the face of psychological contract breaches.

This paper explores total quality management (TQM) soft domain efficacy in social care organizations to determine the extent to which an organization's project success may stem from soft TQM critical success factors (CSFs).

Non-structured interviews were conducted with 16 managers overseeing the prosthetic device regeneration project of the Italian local health unit (located in Salerno) to explore which soft factors could contribute to the success of a social care multifunctional organization.

Organizations' handling of certain projects, such as pivoting on soft TQM issues, may allow them to be configured as multiservice organizations. Therefore, a conceptual model of a multiservice social care organization is proposed.

From a managerial perspective, this study presents an interesting success case of a multiservice social care organization with a total annual expenditure of €20 million on prosthetic assistance. Preliminary data show a 13% reduction in public expenditure for Salerno's local health unit via a refurbishment project.

The paper contributes to the soft TQM literature debate: although Italian local health professionals appear aware of soft TQM issues' implementation and consciously apply them in their organization and projects, this occurs more with specific CSFs emerging from the literature. Therefore, this article paves the way for further quantitative and theoretical investigations on the adoption of TQM soft issues in social care organizations' performance measurement.

The purpose of this study is to determine the interactions between factors such as organizational learning, feedback about errors, punitive response to errors and communication quality in hospitals in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Colombia when adopting a culture of quality and safety (CQS) in patient care.

Based on a literature review, a self-administered questionnaire was developed and used to collect data from 417 Saudi respondents affiliated with hospitals and 483 Colombian respondents at the beginning of the pandemic. Structural equation modeling is used in this study to test the hypothesized relationships.

The results show a solid and significant predictive relationship between feedback about errors and the CQS in both countries (Colombia: b = 0.55, p < 0.001; KSA: b = 0.44, p < 0.001), but a very low and insignificant predictive relationship between no punitive response to errors and CQS (Colombia: b = –0.02, p > 0.05; KSA: b = 0.05, p > 0.05).

This study demonstrates the importance of organizational learning in fostering a CQS in the health-care sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Colombia. Recent unprecedented policy actions motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as social distancing, lockdowns and safety practices enforcement, have further highlighted this concern. Moreover, attention to the dimensions addressed in this study is required for accreditation purposes in organizations seeking to promote a CQS. Overall, this research highlights the vital role of safety and quality practices among health-care organizations, which has significant policy implications, especially in the current period of high uncertainty.

This paper contributes to the theory and practice in the health-care sector by extending the current knowledge of the impact of the quality of communications, non-punitive response to errors and feedback about errors in organizational learning and safety culture, and by presenting a novel, quantitative methodology seldom used for these topics.

This study aims to evaluate how a community psychiatry model, referred to as the Mental Health Action Trust (MHAT) in India, provides decentralized care and comprehensive services to people with severe mental illness living in poverty. Using the complex adaptive system (CAS) framework, the authors aim to understand the factors that contribute to the diverse outcomes of the MHAT community mental health programme as observed in four different locations.

Four MHAT clinics were purposively chosen from two districts in Kerala. A comparative case study methodology was used to document each clinic’s MHAT services and activities, as found during field visits and interviews with staff members and volunteers.

The study shows that all four clinics met the basic aim of providing free, quality mental health care to the poorest populations, although not all aspects of the comprehensive model could be equally provided. Alignment with the MHAT vision, appropriate leadership, the relationship with partners and their level of community engagement determined the varied success between clinics.

The current study evaluation stresses that community ownership is crucial. Careful attention must be paid to the characteristics of selected partners, including their leadership styles and ability to garner resources.

The paper aims to examine the association of green human resource management (GHRM) with organisational sustainability (OS) through the mediating function of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organisational citizenship behaviour for the environment (OCBE) in Palestinian health-care organisations.

The paper applied a quantitative method in which data are collected from a survey with 88 human resources and quality managers who work in Palestinian health-care organisations. Furthermore, the structural equation modelling method of partial least squares was used for the data analysis.

The results demonstrated that GHRM practices positively influenced CSR and OCBE, which eventually influenced OS. Notably, this study offers empirical insights into how to improve OS through CSR, OCBE and GHRM approaches.

This paper presents the implications for achieving the health care sector’s long-term sustainability by linking strategic environmental goals of human resources management practices with practices of social responsibility and organisational citizenship behaviour, which ensures employee participation in formulating policies and strategies for the organization.