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'Doing more with less': a qualitative investigation of perceptions of South African health service managers on implementation of health innovations.

ABSTRACT: Building resilience in health systems is an imperative for low- and middle- income countries. Health service managers' ability to implement health innovations may be a key aspect of resilience in primary healthcare facilities, promoting adaptability and functionality. This study investigated health service managers' perceptions and experiences of adopting health innovations. We aimed to identify perceptions of constraints to adoption and emergent behaviours in response to these constraints. A convenience sample of 34 facility, clinical service and sub-district level managers was invited to participate. Six did not respond and were not contactable. In-depth individual interviews in a private space at participants' place of work were conducted with 28 participants. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. NVivo 11 was used to store data and facilitate framework analysis. Study participants described constraints to innovation adoption including: staff lack of understanding of potential benefits; staff personalities, attitudes and behaviours which lead to resistance to change; high workload related to resource constraints and frequent policy changes inducing resistance to change; and suboptimal communication through health system structures. Managers reported employing various strategies to mitigate these constraints. These comprised (1) technical skills including participatory management skills, communication skills, community engagement skills and programme monitoring and evaluation skills, and (2) non-technical skills including role modelling positive attitudes, understanding staff personalities, influencing perceptions of innovations, influencing organizational climate and building trusting relationships. Managers have a vital role in the embedding of service innovations into routine practice. We present a framework of technical and non-technical skills that managers need to facilitate the adoption of health innovations. Future efforts to build managers' capacity to implement health innovations should target these competencies.

SUBMITTER: Brooke-Sumner C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6481285 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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'Doing more with less': a qualitative investigation of perceptions of South African health service managers on implementation of health innovations.

Brooke-Sumner Carrie C Petersen-Williams Petal P Kruger James J Mahomed Hassan H Myers Bronwyn B

Health policy and planning 20190301 2

Building resilience in health systems is an imperative for low- and middle- income countries. Health service managers' ability to implement health innovations may be a key aspect of resilience in primary healthcare facilities, promoting adaptability and functionality. This study investigated health service managers' perceptions and experiences of adopting health innovations. We aimed to identify perceptions of constraints to adoption and emergent behaviours in response to these constraints. A co ...[more]

PMID: 30863845

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Project description:OBJECTIVE:Public primary health care and district health systems play important roles in expanding healthcare access and promoting equity. This study explored and described accountability for this mandate as perceived and experienced by frontline health managers and providers involved in delivering maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) services in a rural South African health district. METHODS:This was a qualitative study involving in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of 58 frontline public sector health managers and providers in the district office and two sub-districts, examining the meanings of accountability and related lived experiences. A thematic analysis approach grounded in descriptive phenomenology was used to identify the main themes and organise the findings. RESULTS:Accountability was described by respondents as both an organisational mechanism of answerability and responsibility and an intrinsic professional virtue. Accountability relationships were understood to be multidirectional - upwards and downwards in hierarchies, outwards to patients and communities, and inwards to the 'self'. The practice of accountability was seen as constrained by organisational environments where impunity and unfair punishment existed alongside each other, where political connections limited the ability to sanction and by climates of fear and blame. Accountability was seen as enabled by open management styles, teamwork, good relationships between primary health care, hospital services and communities, investment in knowledge and skills development and responsive support systems. The interplay of these constraints and enablers varied across the facilities and sub-districts studied. CONCLUSIONS:Providers and managers have well-established ideas about, and a language of, accountability. The lived reality of accountability by frontline managers and providers varies and is shaped by micro-configurations of enablers and constraints in local accountability ecosystems. A 'just culture', teamwork and collaboration between primary health care and hospitals and community participation were seen as promoting accountability, enabling collective responsibility, a culture of learning rather than blame, and ultimately, access to and quality of care.

Project description:BACKGROUND:It is widely acknowledged that health policy and practice do not always reflect current research evidence. Whether knowledge transfer from research to practice is more successful when specific implementation approaches are used remains unclear. A model to assist engagement of allied health managers and clinicians with research implementation could involve disseminating evidence-based policy recommendations, along with the use of knowledge brokers. We developed such a model to aid decision-making for the provision of weekend allied health services. This protocol outlines the design and methods for a multi-centre cluster randomised controlled trial to evaluate the success of research implementation strategies to promote evidence-informed weekend allied health resource allocation decisions, especially in hospital managers. METHODS:This multi-centre study will be a three-group parallel cluster randomised controlled trial. Allied health managers from Australian and New Zealand hospitals will be randomised to receive either (1) an evidence-based policy recommendation document to guide weekend allied health resource allocation decisions, (2) the same policy recommendation document with support from a knowledge broker to help implement weekend allied health policy recommendations, or (3) a usual practice control group. The primary outcome will be alignment of weekend allied health service provision with policy recommendations. This will be measured by the number of allied health service events (occasions of service) occurring on weekends as a proportion of total allied health service events for the relevant hospital wards at baseline and 12-month follow-up. DISCUSSION:Evidence-based policy recommendation documents communicate key research findings in an accessible format. This comparatively low-cost research implementation strategy could be combined with using a knowledge broker to work collaboratively with decision-makers to promote knowledge transfer. The results will assist managers to make decisions on resource allocation, based on evidence. More generally, the findings will inform the development of an allied health model for translating research into practice. TRIAL REGISTRATION:This trial is registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) ( ACTRN12618000029291 ). Universal Trial Number (UTN): U1111-1205-2621.

Project description:Objectives: Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a highly promising tool for assessing and treating a range of mental illnesses. However, little is known about the perspectives of key stakeholders in mental healthcare, whose support will be critical for its successful implementation into routine clinical practise. This study aimed to explore the perspectives of staff working in the private mental health sector around the use of therapeutic VR, including potential implementation barriers and facilitators. Methods: Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with cross-disciplinary clinicians (n = 14) and service managers (n = 5), aged 28-70 years working in a major private mental health hospital in Victoria, Australia. Transcripts were analysed using general inductive coding to allow themes to naturally emerge. Results: Three major themes were identified: clinical factors (four subthemes), organisational factors (five subthemes), and professional factors (three subthemes). The themes encompassed enabling factors and potential barriers that need to be addressed for successful implementation of VR. Clinical factors highlighted the influence of knowledge or perceptions about appropriate clinical applications, therapeutic efficacy, safety and ethical concerns, and patient engagement. Organisational factors emphasised the importance of service contexts, including having a strong business case, stakeholder planning, recruitment of local opinion leaders to champion change, and an understanding of resourcing challenges. Professional factors highlighted the need for education and training for staff, and the influence of staff attitudes towards technology and perceived usability of VR. Conclusions: In addition to enabling factors, potential implementation barriers of therapeutic VR were identified, including resourcing constraints, safety and ethical concerns, negative staff attitudes towards technology and VR system limitations. Future dissemination should focus on addressing knowledge and skills gaps and attitudinal barriers through development of clinical guidelines, training programs, and implementation resources (e.g., adoption decision tools, consultation opportunities).

Project description:BackgroundThere is a growing expectation that many health organisations will implement innovations. One obstacle for innovative ideas to have an impact on the healthcare system in practice seems to be difficulties in the implementation phase. There is a lack of concretization of theoretical perspectives related to implementation of innovations. The research question answered by this article is: Which enabling factors can facilitate the specific step of moving from idea generation to implementation in a healthcare context?MethodsThe research was carried out with a qualitative action research methodology where the researchers took part in the innovation implementation project. The authors of this article were part of a collaborative innovation implementation project involving approximately 54 practitioners. The project was run by five stakeholders: (1) the Division of Assistive Technology in the Dalarna County Council Regional Healthcare Administration, (2) the Habilitation Division, (3) the Division for Home Care and Social Services in the municipality of Leksand, (4) Dalarna University, and (5) Uppsala University. Through a 'Pearl growing' technique six implementation management perspectives were, as a framework, identified and presented for the practitioners. The practitioners worked further to concretize these six perspectives. Data was collected through five workshops and collaborations between the researchers and the practitioners. Data was clustered regarding what the managers want to achieve within these six perspectives (ideal situation) and the main means for reaching this situation.ResultsThe study underlying this article generated 35 concrete enabling factors for successful innovation implementation, distributed over the initially presented six theoretical perspectives.ConclusionConcretizing management principles into enabling factors shows, on the one hand, that the theoretical principles have practical value, but on the other that they must be adopted to the specific circumstances of each organization, and that too abstract principles can hardly be operationalized.

Project description:ObjectivesBubble CPAP (bCPAP), a non-invasive ventilation modality, has emerged as an intervention that is able to reduce pneumonia-related mortality in children in low resourced settings. Our study primarily aimed to describe a cohort of children who were started on CPAP in the Medical Emergency Unit (MEU) of Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital 2016-2018.MethodsA retrospective review of a randomly selected sample of paper-based folders was conducted. Children started on bCPAP at MEU were eligible for inclusion. Demographic and clinical data, management, and outcomes regarding admission to PICU, need for invasive ventilation and mortality were documented. Descriptive statistical data were generated for all relevant variables. Percentages depicted frequencies of categorical data while medians with interquartile ranges (IQR) were used to summarise continuous data.ResultsOf 500 children started on bCPAP, 266 (53%) were male; their median age was 3.7 (IQR 1.7-11.3) months and 169 (34%) were moderately to severely underweight-for-age. There were 12 (2%) HIV-infected children; 403 (81%) had received appropriate immunisations for their age; and 119 (24%) were exposed to tobacco smoke at home. The five most common primary reasons for admission were acute respiratory illness, acute gastroenteritis, congestive cardiac failure, sepsis and seizures. Most children, 409 (82%), had no underlying medical condition. Most children, 411 (82%), were managed in high care areas of the general medical wards while 126 (25%) went to PICU. The median time on CPAP was 1.7 (IQR 0.9-2.8) days. The median hospitalisation time was 6 (IQR 4-9) days. Overall, 38 (8%) children required invasive ventilatory support. Overall, 12 (2%) children with a median age of 7.5 (IQR 0.7-14.5) months died, six of whom had an underlying medical condition.ConclusionsSeventy-five percent of children initiated on bCPAP did not require PICU admission. This form of non-invasive ventilatory support should be considered more widely in the context of limited access to paediatric intensive care units in other African settings.

Project description:Background: China has been encouraged to learn from international innovations in the organization and management of health service delivery to achieve the national health reform objectives. However, the success and effectiveness of implementing innovations is affected by the interactions of innovations with the Chinese context. Our aim is to synthesize evidence on factors influencing the implementation of non-Chinese innovations in organization and management of health service delivery in mainland China. Methods: A systematic review was conducted according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We searched seven databases for peer-reviewed articles published between 2009 and 2020. Data were analyzed and combined to generate a list of factors influencing the implementation of foreign innovations in China. The factors were classified in the categories context, system, organization, innovation, users, resources, and implementation process. Results: The 110 studies meeting the inclusion criteria revealed 33 factors. Most supported by evidence is the factor integration in organizational policies, followed by the factors motivation & incentives and human resources. Some factors (e.g., governmental policies & regulations) were mentioned in multiple studies with little or no evidence. Conclusion: Evidence on factors influencing the implementation of foreign innovations in organization and management of health service delivery is scarce and of limited quality. Although many factors identified in this review have also been reported in reviews primarily considering Western literature, this review suggests that extrinsic motivation, financial incentives, governmental and organizational policies & regulations are more important while decentralization was found to be less important in China compare to Western countries. In addition, introducing innovations in rural China seems more challenging than in urban China, because of a lack of human resources and the more traditional rural culture.

Project description:The shrimp has become the most valuable traded marine product in the world, and its microbiota plays an essential role in its development and overall health status. Massive high-throughput sequencing techniques using several hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene are broadly applied in shrimp microbiota studies. However, it is essential to consider that the use of different hypervariable regions can influence the obtained data and the interpretation of the results. The present study compares the shrimp microbiota structure and composition obtained by three types of amplicons: one spanning both the V3 and V4 hypervariable regions (V3V4), one for the V3 region only (V3), and one for the V4 region only (V4) using the same experimental and bioinformatics protocols. Twenty-four samples from hepatopancreas and intestine were sequenced and evaluated using the GreenGenes and silva reference databases for clustering and taxonomic classification. In general, the V3V4 regions resulted in higher richness and diversity, followed by V3 and V4. All three regions establish an apparent clustering effect that discriminates between the two analyzed organs and describe a higher richness for the intestine and a higher diversity for the hepatopancreas samples. Proteobacteria was the most abundant phyla overall, and Cyanobacteria was more common in the intestine, whereas Firmicutes and Actinobacteria were more prevalent in hepatopancreas samples. Also, the genus Vibrio was significantly abundant in the intestine, as well as Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas in the hepatopancreas suggesting these taxa as markers for their respective organs independently of the sequenced region. The use of a single hypervariable region such as V3 may be a low-cost alternative that enables an adequate description of the shrimp microbiota, allowing for the development of strategies to continually monitor the microbial communities and detect changes that could indicate susceptibility to pathogens under real aquaculture conditions while the use of the full V3V4 regions can contribute to a more in-depth characterization of the microbial composition.

Dataset Information

'Doing more with less': a qualitative investigation of perceptions of South African health service managers on implementation of health innovations.

Publications

'Doing more with less': a qualitative investigation of perceptions of South African health service managers on implementation of health innovations.

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