Exploring the meaningfulness of healthcare organizations: a multiple case study

Abstract

Purpose: Patient empowerment has been variously depicted as a new paradigm inspiring the patient-provider relationship. To the authorsâ\u80\u99 knowledge, scholars have focused most of their attention on patient enablement. Alternatively, the ability of health care organizations to establish a comfortable and co-creating partnership with the patients has been overlooked. In an attempt to fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to delve into the meaningfulness of health care organizations, embracing the â\u80\u9corganizational health literacyâ\u80\u9d perspective. Design/methodology/approach: In line with the exploratory nature of this research, a multiple case study approach was taken. It concerned three large public hospitals operating within the Italian National Health Service. The meaningfulness of health care organizations was investigated drawing on the organizational health literacy construct. Findings: The health care organizations were unaware of several crucial issues to improve their meaningfulness. Problematic organizational health literacy was found to prevent patient involvement and to negatively affect the quality of interaction between the patients and the health care professionals. Practical implications: Inadequate organizational health literacy impoverishes the ability of health care organizations to empower the patients and to engage them in value co-creation. The institutional purposes of empowering the patients and involving them in the provision of care require tailored interventions intended to improve organizational meaningfulness. Originality/value: This is one of the first attempts to examine the meaningfulness of health care organizations through the lenses of organizational health literacy. Both quality of care and health outcomes are expected to benefit from the enhancement of organizational health literacy

Organizational Health Literacy in Facilities for People with Disabilities: First Results of an Explorative Qualitative and Quantitative Study

“…Although the concept of individual HL is multidimensional [14,15], prior research has mainly focused on the concept of functional HL by Nutbeam and the concept of skills by Sørensen [16][17][18][19]. According to Nutbeam, functional HL consists of basic reading, literacy, and writing skills, and knowledge of health systems and conditions [14].…”

“…The main aim of OHL is to establish the promotion of HL in all structures and processes within organizations [18,23]. Improving OHL is likely to enable health care organizations to be adapted to the needs of patients [17], to strengthen patient satisfaction [24], to improve the quality of care [25], and to provide equal access to health care tailored to the capacities and competences of the general population [26]. By doing so, not only can certain groups of people (e.g., those with limited HL) benefit from OHL measures, but all stakeholders in a particular setting [27].…”

“…The majority of research on the implementation of OHL has focused on organizational measures promoting OHL, but insufficient consideration is given to organizational and partnership interventions [17,23,37]. Most interventions for the promotion of OHL are informally conducted in organizations and often emphasize the communication climate within (health care) organizations [18,32].…”

“…In particular, interventions are recommended that make it easier, for example, for clients as well as other stakeholders, to access and find their way to and through the organization. Previous studies unanimously emphasized formal and, above all, organizational or organizationally anchored measures focusing on the living and working settings of staff members, while clients are particularly effective in establishing and strengthening OHL [5,17,23,25,40]. Those interventions include, for example, formal or organizational measures integrating OHL in all planning processes (e.g., new departments in the organization, organizational events), the provision of financial and human resources [33], and interventions tailored to the organization, such as the introduction of a structured feedback culture or a barrier-free guidance system [18].…”

Value Co-creation in the Health Service Ecosystems: The Enabling Role of Institutional Arrangements

“…On the one hand, the health care service system absorbs a large share of national budgets ); on the other hand, health care organizations have been variously argued to be unable to effectively meet the special needs of patients (Porter and Tiesberg, 2004;Palumbo, Annarumma, & Musella, 2017). Several scholars have claimed that this situation has been the by-product of the focus of health policies on costs and efficiency improvements (Wenzl, Naci, & Mossialos, 2017;Wildavsky, 2018).…”