Building motivation to participate in a quality improvement collaborative in NHS hospital trusts in Southeast England: a qualitative participatory evaluation

Engaging health care professionals in quality improvement: A qualitative study exploring the synergies between projects of professionalisation and institutionalisation in quality improvement collaborative implementation in Denmark

OBJECTIVE

To examine the projects of professionalisation and institutionalisation forming health care professions' engagement in quality improvement collaborative (QIC) implementation in Denmark, and to analyse the synergies and tensions between the two projects given the opportunities afforded by the QICs.

METHODS

This was a cross-sectional interview study with professionals involved in the implementation of two national QICs in Denmark involving 23 individual interviews and focus group discussions with 75 people representing different professional groups. We conducted a reflexive thematic analysis of the data, drawing on institutional contributions to organisational studies of professions.

RESULTS

Study participants engaged widely in QIC implementation. This engagement was formed by a constructive interplay between the professions' projects of professionalisation and institutionalisation, with only few tensions identified. The project of professionalisation relates to a self-oriented agenda of contributing professional expertise and promoting professional recognition and development, while the project of institutionalisation focuses on improving health care processes and outcomes and advancing quality improvement. Both projects were largely similar across professional groups. The interplay between the two projects was enabled by the bottom-up approach to implementation, participation of QI specialists, and a clear focus on developing and delivering high-quality patient care.

CONCLUSIONS

Future strategies for QIC implementation should position QICs as a framework that promotes the integration of professions' projects of professionalisation and institutionalisation to successfully engage professionals in the implementation process, and thereby optimise the effectiveness of QICs in health care.

Barriers and facilitators to health professionals' engagement in quality improvement initiatives: a mixed-methods systematic review

Quality improvement (QI) initiatives in healthcare are crucial for enhancing service quality and healthcare outcomes. The success of these initiatives depends on the active engagement of healthcare professionals, which can be influenced by several factors within the healthcare system. This systematic review synthesized the factors influencing healthcare professionals' engagement in QI projects, focusing on identifying both barriers and facilitators. A mixed methods systematic review (MMSR) was conducted using the JBI methodology for MMSR. Databases such as MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus, and Embase were searched for studies that explored barriers and facilitators to QI engagement of health professionals in the clinical setting. Methodological quality was assessed using the Mixed-Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT). The extracted data were synthesized using the JBI convergent integrated approach to MMSR. Eighteen studies (seven qualitative, nine quantitative, and two mixed-methods) published between 2007 and 2023 were included in the review. The analysis revealed barriers and facilitators to engagement in QI initiatives at different levels of the health system. At the QI program level, the engagement of health professionals to QI was influenced by the approach to QI, evidence underpinning the QI initiative, QI knowledge and training, and access to QI specialists. At the health professional level, barriers and facilitators were related to their organizational role, motivation, perceptions about QI, and collaborations with individuals and groups. At the organizational level, factors related to culture and climate, leadership, available resources (including human resource and workload, infrastructure, and incentives), and institutional priorities influenced health professionals' participation in QI. This review highlights the complex interplay of organizational, individual, and QI program level factors that influence the engagement of healthcare professionals in QI. Overcoming these complex barriers and leveraging facilitators is crucial for enhancing participation in QI efforts. The findings underscore the need for a multi-level strategy that focuses on creating a conducive organizational culture, providing robust leadership, and ensuring adequate resources and training for healthcare professionals. Such strategies hold the potential to enhance the effectiveness and sustainability of QI initiatives in healthcare settings.

Motivational drivers for health professionals in a large quality improvement collaborative project in Brazil: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND

The success of collaborative quality improvement (QI) projects in healthcare depends on the context and engagement of health teams; however, the factors that modulate teams' motivation to participate in these projects are still unclear. The objective of the current study was to explore the barriers to and facilitators of motivation; the perspective was health professionals in a large project aiming to implement evidence-based infection prevention practices in intensive care units of Brazilian hospitals.

METHODS

This qualitative study was based on content analysis of semistructured in-depth interviews held with health professionals who participated in a collaborative QI project named "Improving patient safety on a large scale in Brazil". In accordance with the principle of saturation, we selected a final sample of 12 hospitals located throughout the five regions of Brazil that have implemented QI; then, we conducted videoconference interviews with 28 health professionals from those hospitals. We encoded the interview data with NVivo software, and the interrelations among the data were assessed with the COM-B model.

RESULTS

The key barriers identified were belief that improvement increases workload, lack of knowledge about quality improvement, resistance to change, minimal involvement of physicians, lack of supplies, lack support from senior managers and work overload. The primary driver of motivation was tangible outcomes, as evidenced by a decrease in infections. Additionally, factors such as the active participation of senior managers, teamwork, learning in practice and understanding the reason for changes played significant roles in fostering motivation.

CONCLUSION

The motivation of health professionals to participate in collaborative QI projects is driven by a variety of barriers and facilitators. The interactions between the senior manager, quality improvement teams, and healthcare professionals generate attitudes that modulate motivation. Thus, these aspects should be considered during the implementation of such projects. Future research could explore the cost-effectiveness of motivational approaches.

Towards achieving interorganisational collaboration between health-care providers: a realist evidence synthesis

Background

Interorganisational collaboration is currently being promoted to improve the performance of NHS providers. However, up to now, there has, to the best of our knowledge, been no systematic attempt to assess the effect of different approaches to collaboration or to understand the mechanisms through which interorganisational collaborations can work in particular contexts.

Objectives

Our objectives were to (1) explore the main strands of the literature about interorganisational collaboration and to identify the main theoretical and conceptual frameworks, (2) assess the empirical evidence with regard to how different interorganisational collaborations may (or may not) lead to improved performance and outcomes, (3) understand and learn from NHS evidence users and other stakeholders about how and where interorganisational collaborations can best be used to support turnaround processes, (4) develop a typology of interorganisational collaboration that considers different types and scales of collaboration appropriate to NHS provider contexts and (5) generate evidence-informed practical guidance for NHS providers, policy-makers and others with responsibility for implementing and assessing interorganisational collaboration arrangements.

Design

A realist synthesis was carried out to develop, test and refine theories about how interorganisational collaborations work, for whom and in what circumstances.

Data sources

Data sources were gathered from peer-reviewed and grey literature, realist interviews with 34 stakeholders and a focus group with patient and public representatives.

Review methods

Initial theories and ideas were gathered from scoping reviews that were gleaned and refined through a realist review of the literature. A range of stakeholder interviews and a focus group sought to further refine understandings of what works, for whom and in what circumstances with regard to high-performing interorganisational collaborations.

Results

A realist review and synthesis identified key mechanisms, such as trust, faith, confidence and risk tolerance, within the functioning of effective interorganisational collaborations. A stakeholder analysis refined this understanding and, in addition, developed a new programme theory of collaborative performance, with mechanisms related to cultural efficacy, organisational efficiency and technological effectiveness. A series of translatable tools, including a diagnostic survey and a collaboration maturity index, were also developed.

Limitations

The breadth of interorganisational collaboration arrangements included made it difficult to make specific recommendations for individual interorganisational collaboration types. The stakeholder analysis focused exclusively on England, UK, where the COVID-19 pandemic posed challenges for fieldwork.

Conclusions

Implementing successful interorganisational collaborations is a difficult, complex task that requires significant time, resource and energy to achieve the collaborative functioning that generates performance improvements. A delicate balance of building trust, instilling faith and maintaining confidence is required for high-performing interorganisational collaborations to flourish.

Future work

Future research should further refine our theory by incorporating other workforce and user perspectives. Research into digital platforms for interorganisational collaborations and outcome measurement are advocated, along with place-based and cross-sectoral partnerships, as well as regulatory models for overseeing interorganisational collaborations.

Study registration

The study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42019149009.

Funding

This project was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health and Social Care Delivery Research programme and will be published in full in Health and Social Care Delivery Research; Vol. 11, No. 6. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.

Factors Associated With Medical Staff's Engagement and Perception of a Quality Improvement Program for Acute Coronary Syndromes in Hospitals: A Nationally Representative Mixed-Methods Study in China

Background Medical staff represent critical stakeholders in the process of implementing a quality improvement (QI) program. Few studies, however, have examined factors that influence medical staff engagement and perception regarding QI programs. Methods and Results We conducted a nationally representative survey of a QI program in 6 cities in China. Quantitative data were analyzed using multilevel mixed-effects linear regression models, and qualitative data were analyzed using the framework method. The engagement of medical staff was significantly related to knowledge scores regarding the specific content of chest pain center accreditation (β=0.42; 95% CI, 0.27-0.57). Higher scores for inner motivation (odds ratio [OR], 1.79; 95% CI, 1.18-2.72) and resource support (OR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.02-2.24) and lower scores for implementation barriers (OR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.67-0.98) were associated with improved treatment behaviors among medical staff. Resource support (OR, 4.52; 95% CI, 2.99-6.84) and lower complexity (OR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.65-1.00) had positive effects on medical staff satisfaction, and respondents with improved treatment behaviors were more satisfied with the QI program. Similar findings were found for factors that influenced medical staff's assessment of QI program sustainability. The qualitative analysis further confirmed and supplemented the findings of quantitative analysis. Conclusions Clarifying and addressing factors associated with medical staff's engagement and perception of QI programs will allow further improvements in quality of care for patients with acute coronary syndrome. These findings may also be applicable to other QI programs in China and other low- and middle-income countries. Registration URL: https://www.chictr.org.cn/; Unique identifier: Chi-CTR2100043319.

Quality improvement engagement: Barriers and facilitators

A comparison of frontline nurses, advanced practice nurses, and nurse leaders.

What Does a Systems Approach to Quality Improvement Look Like in Practice?

Universally improving healthcare systems is difficult to achieve in practice with organisations implementing a range of quality improvement (QI) approaches, in varying and changing contexts, and efforts ranging from project-based improvements to whole system change. This study aimed to identify how organisations overcome the challenges to improving the quality of the services they deliver. Drawing on the eight challenges from the ‘Quality and Safety in Europe by Research (QUASER) hospital guide, we assessed eight cases reported by the UK-based regulator Care Quality Commission as improving their performance. A thematic analysis of these secondary data established that all eight challenges had been addressed or considered in varying degrees. Education and physical and technological challenges seemed less prominent than developments made to address other challenges such as developing leadership, structure, and culture to support improving quality. This paper relies on the analysis of secondary case data and one framework to assess improvement efforts. Further research is required to consider other models and frameworks and to collate longitudinal data to capture the dynamics and increasing the maturity of improving healthcare systems in practice.

An Integrative Review of the Barriers and Facilitators to Nurse Engagement in Quality Improvement in the Clinical Practice Setting

BACKGROUND

Nurse engagement in quality improvement (QI) improves health care quality and outcomes but is typically low in clinical settings.

PURPOSE

An integrative review was conducted to identify facilitators and barriers of nurse engagement in QI.

METHODS

This integrative review was conducted using an electronic search of databases with search terms specific to nursing engagement in QI. The Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice Evidence Level and Quality Guide was used to rate quality and level of evidence.

RESULTS

Nine articles met the criteria for review. Top barriers were leadership, education and training, resource constraints, data, culture, and time. Top facilitators were leadership, education and training, culture, mentors, and champions.

CONCLUSION

High-quality literature exploring barriers and facilitators of nurse engagement in QI is lacking. Research is needed to examine the degree to which these barriers and facilitators impact engagement and how they can be addressed to increase it.

When trust, confidence, and faith collide: refining a realist theory of how and why inter-organisational collaborations in healthcare work

BACKGROUND

Health systems are facing unprecedented socioeconomic pressures as well as the need to cope with the ongoing strain brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the reconfiguration of health systems to encourage greater collaboration and integration has been promoted with a variety of collaborative shapes and forms being encouraged and developed. Despite this continued interest, evidence for success of these various arrangements is lacking, with the links between collaboration and improved performance often remaining uncertain. To date, many examinations of collaborations have been undertaken, but use of realist methodology may shed additional light on how and why collaboration works, and whom it benefits.

METHODS

This paper seeks to test initial context-mechanism-outcome configurations (CMOCs) of interorganisational collaboration with the view to producing a refined realist theory. This phase of the realist synthesis used case study and evaluation literature; combined with supplementary systematic searches. These searches were screened for rigour and relevance, after which CMOCs were extracted from included literature and compared against existing ones for refinement, refutation, or affirmation. We also identified demi-regularities to better explain how these CMOCs were interlinked.

RESULTS

Fifty-one papers were included, from which 338 CMOCs were identified, where many were analogous. This resulted in new mechanisms such as 'risk threshold' and refinement of many others, including trust, confidence, and faith, into more well-defined constructs. Refinement and addition of CMOCs enabled the creation of a 'web of causality' depicting how contextual factors form CMOC chains which generate outputs of collaborative behaviour. Core characteristics of collaborations, such as whether they were mandated or cross-sector, were explored for their proposed impact according to the theory.

CONCLUSION

The formulation of this refined realist theory allows for greater understanding of how and why collaborations work and can serve to inform both future work in this area and the implementation of these arrangements. Future work should delve deeper into collaborative subtypes and the underlying drivers of collaborative performance.

REVIEW REGISTRATION

This review is part of a larger realist synthesis, registered at PROSPERO with ID CRD42019149009 .

Improving antimicrobial stewardship in an Acute Medical Unit (AMU) during patient discharge following introduction of an antimicrobial information card

BACKGROUND

Patients who initially present to the emergency department are often streamlined to an Acute Medical Unit (AMU). A quality improvement project was developed to introduce a new "Antibiotic Information Card" for patients discharged home from the AMU. Aims were to reduce 30-day readmission and reattendance rates due to the same infection after initial discharge by 75%, as well as improving patient education regarding their antibiotic prescription to 75%.

METHODS

Two Plan Do Study Act cycles were implemented in a busy AMU. Data were collected using electronic discharge software and patient records, as well as individual patient telephone questionnaires. Statistical analysis used run chart analysis.

RESULTS

Baseline findings showed a variable level of patient knowledge on their antibiotic prescriptions (14%-70%) and fluctuations in 30-day reattendance rates (0%-50%). After the initial introduction of the Antibiotic Information Card, run chart analysis showed a shift in patient knowledge, significantly increasing to over 75%, and special cause variation which was not sustained.

DISCUSSION

There were no significant changes in 30-day hospital reattendance and readmission rates throughout the intervention; however, there was a significant improvement in patient knowledge of their antibiotic prescription and management.

CONCLUSIONS

Staff engagement is encouraged for sustainability of quality improvement changes to promote antimicrobial stewardship within the AMU.

"Navigation to prioritizing the patient" - first-line nurse managers' experiences of participating in a quality improvement collaborative

Background

First-line nurse managers are central to quality improvement work when changing work practices into better patient outcomes. Quality improvement collaboratives have been adopted widely to support quality management in healthcare services and shared learning. We have little knowledge of the first-line nurse managers’ own perspectives concerning their need for support and knowledge in quality improvement work. Therefore, the aim of this study was to gain understanding of first line nurse managers’ experiences in leading quality improvement work in their own organization when participating in a quality improvement collaborative.

Methods

An interpretive approach was chosen following Graneheim and Lundman’s qualitative content analysis. Data was collected through three focus group interviews with first-line nurse managers representing different workplaces: the local hospital, a nursing home, and a homecare service in a rural area of Norway.

Results

“Navigation to prioritizing the patient” emerged as an overarching metaphor to describe the first-line nurse managers experiences of leading quality improvement work, based on three themes: 1) fellowship for critical thinking and prioritizing the patient; 2) mastering the processes in quality improvement work; and 3) the everyday reality of leadership as a complex context.

Conclusions

A quality improvement collaborative encompassing knowledge transfer and reflection may create an important fellowship for health care leaders, encouraging and enabling quality improvement work in their own organization. It is crucial to invite all leaders from an organization to be able to share the experience and continue their collaboration with their staff in the organization. Continuity over time, following up elements of the quality improvement work at joint meetings, involvement by users, and self-development of and voluntary involvement in the quality improvement collaborative seem to be important for knowledge development in quality improvement. The supportive elements of the quality improvement collaborative fellowship were crucial to critical thinking and to the first-line nurse managers’ own development and security in mastering the quality improvement work processes. They preferred prioritizing the patients in quality improvement work, despite haste and obstructive situations in an everyday context.

Using the Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle to enhance a patient feedback system for older adults

Patient feedback about healthcare experiences has gained increasing attention as an essential and meaningful source of information for identifying gaps and developing effective action plans for improving the quality of care. As experiences differ across patient groups, flexible and responsive feedback systems are essential. The population of older adults is growing rapidly; it constitutes an increasing proportion of the NHS client base. This group wants to have a say in their care and their views are critical in any performance assessment of a modern healthcare system. Nevertheless, collecting feedback data from older adults presents unique challenges, due to chronic conditions and comorbidities involving vision, hearing, speech and cognitive processing. In addition, nurses often find it difficult to act on feedback data in order to make quality improvements. This difficulty is associated with poor leadership, absence of explicit targets and an action plan, and the nature of clinical change required. This article offers insight into the development of a local innovation centred on enhancing the feedback system in a medical rehabilitation ward for older adults. A model for improvement in the form of the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycle provided a structured learning approach to facilitate the planning, testing, analysing and refining of the feedback system.