van den Hoed Monique W, Daniëls Ramon, Beaulen Audrey, Hamers Jan P H, van Exel Job, Backhaus Ramona
Department of Health Services Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, CAPHRI Care and Public Health Research Institute, Maastricht University, Duboisdomein 30, Maastricht, 6229 GT, The Netherlands.
Living Lab in Ageing and Long-Term Care, Duboisdomein 30, Maastricht, 6229 GT, The Netherlands.
BMC Geriatr. 2024 Dec 19;24(1):1017. doi: 10.1186/s12877-024-05572-3.
The scarcity of resources in long-term care demands more than ever that organizations in this sector are prepared for innovation to ensure affordable access to care for older adults. Organizations that are innovation ready are more capable of implementing innovations. Therefore, a better understanding of how stakeholders view innovation readiness in long-term care can provide actionable strategies to enhance their innovative capacities. 'Innovation readiness' indicates the level of maturity of an organization to succeed in any type of innovation. Our study explored perspectives among stakeholders on what they consider important for organizations in long-term care for older adults to be innovation ready.
Q-methodology, a mixed-methods approach, was used to investigate the perspectives of 30 stakeholders connected to long-term care for older adults in the Netherlands: academics, (top)management, innovation managers, client representatives, staff, and consultants. Stakeholders were asked to rank 36 statements on innovation readiness on importance. Statements were extracted from literature research and qualitative interviews. Thereafter in the post-interviews stakeholders explained their ranking and reflected on the statements. By-person factor analysis was used to identify clusters in the ranking data. Together with the qualitative data from follow-up interviews, these clusters were interpreted and described as perspectives of the stakeholders.
Four distinct perspectives were identified on what they consider important for innovation readiness in long-term care: (1) 'supportive role of management' (2) 'participation of the client (system) and employees' (3) 'setting the course and creating conditions' and (4) 'structuring decision-making, roles and responsibilities'. The 36 statements represented a complete overview of innovation readiness factors. No additional innovation factors to those previously identified in the literature emerged from the interviews.
Stakeholders agree that all factors contributing to innovation readiness of long-term care organizations for older adults are accounted for. The variety of perspectives on what is most important shows there is no agreement among stakeholders about a fixed route toward innovation readiness. However, stakeholders suggested a temporal order of the innovation readiness factors, preferably starting with formulating the innovation ambition. This study's results could contribute to developing an assessment tool to deliver a structured approach for managers to assess the innovation readiness of their organization.
The study received ethical approval on April 13, 2022 from the Medical Ethics Board of Zuyderland Medical Center in the Netherlands with the number METCZ20220036.
长期护理资源的稀缺比以往任何时候都更需要该领域的组织为创新做好准备，以确保老年人能够获得负担得起的护理服务。准备好进行创新的组织更有能力实施创新。因此，更好地了解利益相关者如何看待长期护理中的创新准备情况，可以提供切实可行的策略来提高他们的创新能力。“创新准备情况”表明一个组织在任何类型的创新中取得成功的成熟程度。我们的研究探讨了利益相关者对于他们认为对老年人长期护理组织做好创新准备而言重要的因素的看法。
采用Q方法（一种混合方法）来调查与荷兰老年人长期护理相关的30名利益相关者的观点，这些利益相关者包括学者、（高层）管理人员、创新经理、客户代表、员工和顾问。要求利益相关者根据重要性对36条关于创新准备情况的陈述进行排序。这些陈述是从文献研究和定性访谈中提取的。此后，在访谈后，利益相关者解释了他们的排序并对陈述进行了反思。通过个人因素分析来识别排序数据中的聚类。连同后续访谈的定性数据，这些聚类被解释并描述为利益相关者的观点。
就他们认为对长期护理中的创新准备情况而言重要的因素，确定了四种不同的观点：（1）“管理层的支持作用”（2）“客户（系统）和员工的参与”（3）“设定方向并创造条件”以及（4）“构建决策、角色和职责”。这36条陈述代表了创新准备情况因素的完整概述。访谈中未出现文献中先前未确定的其他创新因素。
利益相关者一致认为，促成老年人长期护理组织创新准备情况的所有因素都已涵盖。对于最重要的因素存在多种观点，这表明利益相关者对于实现创新准备情况的固定路径没有达成共识。然而，利益相关者提出了创新准备情况因素的时间顺序，最好从制定创新目标开始。本研究的结果有助于开发一种评估工具，为管理人员提供一种结构化方法来评估其组织的创新准备情况。
该研究于2022年4月13日获得荷兰祖德兰德医疗中心医学伦理委员会的伦理批准，批准号为METCZ20220036。
