Transferring, translating and transforming knowledge: the role of brokering in healthcare networks

Enhancing safety culture in radiology: Key practices and recommendations for sustainable excellence

OBJECTIVES

This review aims to explore and thematically synthesize the existing literature on safety culture within the context of radiology. The primary objective is to identify key practices that effectively strengthen safety culture, highlighting the pivotal roles of leadership, effective teamwork, and interprofessional collaboration in these efforts. The review intends to showcase actionable recommendations that are particularly relevant to the radiology setting.

KEY FINDINGS

The study highlights that effective leadership is fundamental in establishing and nurturing a safety-first approach within radiology departments. Key practices for promoting a safety culture include safety huddles, leadership walkarounds, quality learning boards, intentional patient rounding (frequent patient-care provider interactions), morbidity and mortality meetings, and multidisciplinary team rounds. These practices have been found to facilitate open communication and transparency, which are crucial elements in creating a sustainable safety culture. Additionally, the study underscores the significant role of radiology managers in driving these safety initiatives and acting as facilitators for a culture of safety, focused on long-term excellence and continuous improvement.

CONCLUSION

The study concludes that a multifaceted and comprehensive approach is vital for fostering a safety culture in radiology departments, with a focus on sustainable excellence in patient care. The leadership role is critical in this process, with radiology managers being instrumental in implementing and maintaining effective safety practices.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

This study provides best practices for sustainable safety culture in radiology departments. It advocates for healthcare managers to adopt and integrate these identified practices into their operational strategies. Continuous professional development, focusing on safety and quality in patient care, and fostering a collaborative environment for open discussion and learning from safety incidents are essential for the continued advancement and excellence of healthcare services.

Hybridity enabled: A research synthesis of the enabling conditions for hybrid professionalism in healthcare

Hybrid professionals in healthcare organizations play a critical role, the characteristics, processes and implications of which have been thoroughly studied by scholars in the field. However, not as much attention has been paid to the conditions under which such roles might be taken by professionals entering the ground of management. This gap results into a lack of conceptual clarity and eventually ends being an obstacle in framing and ameliorating the tools needed to act such a role in its different phases. This is a research area worthy of a finer-grained understanding: the ability of organizations to effectively support role hybridization, in fact, is a requisite for professionals-managers' willingness to stay in the role and cope with the complexity that such a two-fold position entails, no matter what. Based on the results of a scoping literature review, this paper presents the enabling conditions for hybrid professionalism in healthcare, and proposes a classification of them into categories corresponding to different facets of hybrid role-taking: opportunities for interaction with management, tools supporting sense-making, and provision of delegation and autonomy. For each of these categories, organizational and management tools discussed in the literature are presented. The results of the study provide a road-map of the enabling conditions for hybrid professionalism that aims to be of practical convenience for managers and policy-makers in health care. Eventually, suggestions for organizational design and personnel management, as well as directions for further research, are highlighted.

Evaluation of a family liaison officer role introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic: A mixed methods study

RATIONALE

The restrictions to hospital visiting for carers and relatives during the pandemic were unprecedented. To ensure patients could stay in touch with their relatives and carers new liaison roles were introduced.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study is to report on the evaluation of a Family Liaison Officer (FLO) role to understand the rationale for introducing the role along with the challenges and benefits of its implementation.

METHODS

A concurrent mixed methods design was used, triangulating both semi structured interviews and online surveys. Data were collected during 2021 from postholders, patients/relatives and key stakeholders.

RESULTS

The family liaison officer role occupies a key brokering role between clinical teams and patients/relatives. All participants agreed the importance of the role particularly in relation to communication. Postholders noted issues around clarity of scope of practice. Patients reported the social benefits of the FLOs particularly in relation to technology. There was also key learning in terms of induction, training and line management of this nonprofessional role.

CONCLUSION

There is limited research that evaluates emerging nonprofessional roles that connect clinical teams and patients/relatives. This evaluation study although limited to one organisation provides important insights to the strategic and operational learning to introducing a family liaison officer role during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How insights from the field of information behavior can enrich understanding of knowledge mobilization

PURPOSE

The authors review the literature on information behavior, an autonomous body of work developed mainly in library studies and compare it with work on knowledge mobilization. The aim is to explore how information behavior can contribute to understanding knowledge mobilization in healthcare management.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

The authors conducted a narrative review using an exploratory, nonkeyword "double-sided systematic snowball" method. This is especially useful in the situation when the two traditions targeted are broad and relies on distinct vocabulary.

FINDINGS

The authors find that the two bodies of work have followed similar trajectories and arrived at similar conclusions, with a linear view supplemented first by a social approach and then by a sensitivity to practice. Lessons from the field of information behavior can be used to avoid duplication of effort, repeating the same errors and reinventing the wheel among knowledge translation scholars. This includes, for example, focusing on sources of information or ignoring the mundane activities in which managers and policymakers are involved.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

The study is the first known attempt to build bridges between the field of information behavior and the study of knowledge mobilization. The study, moreover, foregrounds the need to address knowledge mobilization in context-sensitive and social rather than technical terms, focusing on the mundane work performed by a variety of human and nonhuman agents.