City Research Online

Abstract

Background
There is limited understanding about whether and how improvement interventions are effective in supporting failing healthcare organisations and improving the quality of care in high-performing organisations. The aim of this review was to examine the underlying concepts guiding the design of interventions aimed at low and high performing healthcare organisations, processes of implementation, unintended consequences, and their impact on costs and quality of care. The review includes articles in the healthcare sector and other sectors such as education and local government.

Methods
We carried out a phased rapid systematic review of the literature. Phase one was used to develop a theoretical framework of organisational failure and turnaround, and the types of interventions implemented to improve quality. The framework was used to inform phase 2, which was targeted and focused on organisational failure and turnaround in healthcare, education and local government settings. We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement to guide the reporting of the methods and findings and the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) as a quality assessment tool. The review protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD: 42019131024).

Results
Failure is frequently defined as the inability of organisations to meet pre-established performance standards and turnaround as a linear process. Improvement interventions are designed accordingly and are focused on the organisation, with limited system-level thinking. Successful interventions included restructuring senior leadership teams, inspections, and organisational restructuring by external organisations. Limited attention was paid to the potential negative consequences of the interventions and their costs.

Conclusion
Dominant definitions of success/failure and turnaround have led to the reduced scope of improvement interventions, the linear perception of turnaround, and lack of consideration of organisations within the wider system in which they operate. Future areas of research include an analysis of the costs of delivering these interventions in relation to their impact on quality of care.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2020 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher Keywords:	Low-Performing, High-Performing, Improvement, Interventions, Healthcare Organisations
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > Sociology & Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

Export

Downloads