Abstract
Healthcare organizations must continue to improve services to meet the rising demand and patient expectations. For this to occur, the health workforce needs to have knowledge and skills to design, implement, and evaluate service improvement interventions. Studies have shown that effective training in health service improvement and redesign combines didactic education with experiential project-based learning and on-the-ground coaching. Project-based learning requires organizational support and oversight, generally through executive sponsorship. A mixed-methods approach, comprising online surveys and semi-structured interviews, was used to explore the experiences of expert coaches and executive sponsors as key facilitators of workplace-based projects undertaken during an Australian postgraduate healthcare redesign course. Fifteen (54%) expert coaches and 37 (20%) executive sponsors completed the online survey. Ten expert coaches and six executive sponsors participated in interviews. The survey data revealed overall positive experiences for coaches and mixed experiences for sponsors. Interview participants expressed a sense of fulfillment that came from working with project teams to deliver a successful project and educational outcomes. However, concerns were raised about adequate resourcing, organizational recognition, competing priorities, and the skills required to effectively coach and sponsor. Expert coaches and executive sponsors sometimes felt under-valued and may benefit from cohort-tailored and evidence-based professional development.
Highlights
Ongoing health service improvement is required to ensure that organizations continue to provide safe, effective, and efficient patient-centered care [1]
This study study aimed aimed to to capture capture the the experiences experiences of of expert expert coaches coaches and and executive executive project project sponsors sponsors
The New South Wales (NSW) health system has significantly invested in healthcare redesign capacity building by incorporating the essential roles of expert coaches and executive sponsors within the project components of the redesign course
Summary
Ongoing health service improvement is required to ensure that organizations continue to provide safe, effective, and efficient patient-centered care [1]. Studies have estimated that up to 30% of the delivery of healthcare can be classified as low-value care [2], defined as “use of an intervention where evidence suggests it confers no or very little benefit on patients, or risk of harm exceeds likely benefit, Int. J. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 5308; doi:10.3390/ijerph17155308 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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