return to the full list of books

Cultures for performance in health care

What is organizational culture? Do organizational cultures influence the performance of health care organizations? Are organizational cultures capable of being managed to beneficial effect?

Recent legislation in the United Kingdom has led to significant reforms within the health care system. Clinical quality, safety and performance have been the focus for improvement alongside systematic changes involving decision-making power being devolved to patients and frontline staff. However, as this book shows, improvements in performance are intrinsically linked to cultural changes within health care settings.

Using theories from a wide range of disciplines including economics, management and organization studies, policy studies and the health sciences, this book sets out definitions of cultures and performance, in particular the specific characteristics that help or hinder performance. Case studies of high and low performing hospital trusts and primary care trusts are used to explore the links between culture and performance. These studies provide examples of strategies to create beneficial, high-performance cultures that may be used by other managers. Moreover, implications for future policies and research are outlined.

Cultures for Performance in Health Care is essential reading for those with an interest in health care management and health policy including students, researchers, policy makers and health care professionals.

Introduction: policy background and overview
Making sense of organizational culture in health care (with Tim Scott)
Does organizational culture infuence health care performance? A review of existing evidence
Culture and performance in acute hospital trusts: integration and synthesis of case study evidence
Culture and performance in English acute hospital trusts: condensed case study narratives (with Alison Powell)
Findings from a quantitative analysis of all English NHS acute trusts (with Rowena Jacobs)
Findings from the primary care case studies (with Liz Nelson)
Summary, conclusions and implications for policy and research

Cultures for performance in health care

Contents

Cultures for performance in health care

Order this book