Measuring the organisational health of acute sector healthcare organisations: Development and validation of the Healthcare-OH survey

ABSTRACT

Healthy organisations have a strong provision of the vital elements required for long-term sustainable success and proponents of organisational health concern themselves with the recognition and measurement of these elements. However, despite many leading companies focussing on organisational health in addition to organisational performance there has been very limited work within the context of healthcare to date. This is the first study to look specifically at the measurement of organisational health within the context of acute sector healthcare organisations. The Healthcare-OH survey was developed in three sequential stages. In the first, a qualitative interview study was used to establish the elements of organisational health within acute sector healthcare organisations. The second stage involved item generation to formulate a draft questionnaire which was then piloted across a sample of healthcare staff and analysed by way of exploratory factor analysis to create the final questionnaire. The third stage comprised a final round of pilot testing with confirmatory factor analysis to confirm data model fit. We believe that the Healthcare-OH survey provides an innovative and novel way of considering the performance of healthcare organisations.

KEYWORDS:

• Organisational health
• healthcare performance
• health services research
• staff survey
• measure design
• grounded theory
• exploratory factor analysis
• confirmatory factor analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval: This study has been reviewed by the South West London REC3 Research Ethics Proportionate Review Sub-Committee and granted ethical approval. All participating staff members read a participant information sheet prior to the interview and explicitly gave their consent to be involved in the study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chris R. Nicolay

Dr Chris R. Nicolay MA PhD FRCS is an Honorary Research Fellow within the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London and, clinically, is a Surgical Registrar.

Stephen P. Williams

Dr Stephen P. Williams MA MRCS is an NIHR Research Fellow within the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London and an ENT Registrar.

Milica Brkic

Dr Milica Brkic is a Research Assistant within the Department of Management, Imperial College Business School.

Sanjay Purkayastha

Dr Sanjay Purkayastha MD FRCS is a Senior Clinical Lecturer within the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London and a Consultant Surgeon.

Sankalp Chaturvedi

Dr Sankalp Chaturvedi MA PhD is Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Leadership, Imperial College Business School.

Nelson Phillips

Prof Nelson Phillips PhD is Professor of Innovation and Strategy at Imperial College Business School.

Ara Darzi

Prof the Lord Ara Darzi OM KBE FRS FRCS is Professor of Surgery within the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London and a Consultant Surgeon.