Resilience in Healthcare

Resilience in healthcare is the diverse capacities of a healthcare system that allow it to maintain the delivery of high-quality care during and after events that challenge, change or disrupt its activities, by engaging people in collaborative and coordinated processes that adapt, enhance or reorganize system functioning in response to those events. 

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Facts
Project manager

Siri Wiig

Funding

Research Council Norway – FRIPRO  TOPPFORSK, University of Stavanger, NTNU Gjøvik, and The Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation 

Project period

1 September 2018 – 28 February 2023  

Budget

66 mill NOK

In 2022, the project has been working on advancing and testing the Resilience in Healthcare theoretical framework, modelling Patient and Stakeholder involvement in resilience, and testing the collaborative learning framework and the digital resilience learning tool in practice.

Siri Wiig , project manager
Nærbilde av helsepersonell som smiler til en kollega

In short, the Resilience in Healthcare project has defined resilience as the capacity to adapt to challenges and changes in everyday practices at different system levels, to maintain high quality care.   

In 2022, the project has been working on advancing and testing the Resilience in Healthcare theoretical framework, modelling Patient and Stakeholder involvement in resilience, and testing the collaborative learning framework and the digital resilience learning tool in practice. To ensure user-friendliness and relevance of the comprehensive resilience frameworks to the target audiences, focus group interviews and workshops with SHARE’ Patient and stakeholder involvement panel,  representatives from nursing homes, homecare, and hospitals have been completed prior to  testing in practice.  

The resilience learning tool focuses on learning from everyday practice and understanding adaptive capacity. The tool is made up of three different elements to allow for flexible use within different multidisciplinary groups of healthcare personnel. First, a mapping of current status on ten resilience capacities; second, diverse learning scenarios for group discussions and reflection upon own resilience capacities; third, a resilience reflection check list for short reflections during everyday work.  

During 2022 an intervention program has been conducted in nursing homes, homecare, and hospitals settings. All sites have participated in three workshops and used the tool in their practice. Focus group interviews and workshop observation are currently analyzed to evaluating the tool content, usability and how it is perceived to improve adaptive capacity and learning from success and everyday work.  

Furthermore, the data collection in the international study of resilience in healthcare across the six countries is ongoing, although the covid situation causes delays in some of the countries. The cross-country comparative study adds knowledge of how resilience is enabled in diverse healthcare systems by examining adaptive capacity in hospital teams in England, Switzerland, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, and Norway. 

The project has been picking up on mobility during 2022 and several of the international collaborating partners visited Stavanger in 2022 and played a key role in SHARE international week in August and spent time in Stavanger during the fall. Moreover, UiS researchers went abroad to continue the strong international collaboration in the project. This effort continues in 2023. 

Selected publications from 2022: 

  • Haraldseid-Driftland C, Billett S, Guise V, Schibevaag L, Alsvik JG, Fagerdal B, Bø Lyng H, & Wiig S. The role of collaborative learning in resilience in healthcare—a thematic qualitative meta‑synthesis of resilience narratives. BMC Health Services Research (2022) 22:1091 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08451-y  
  • Fagerdal B, Bø Lyng H, Guise V, Anderson J, Thornam PL, & Wiig S. Exploring the role of leaders in enabling adaptive capacity in hospital teams – a multiple case study. BMC Health Services Research (2022) 22:908  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08296-5  
  • Bø Lyng, H., Macrae C, Guise V, Haraldseid-Driftland C, Fagerdal B, Schibevaag L, & Wiig S. (2022). Capacities for resilience in healthcare; a qualitative study across different healthcare contexts. BMC Health Services Research (2022) 22:474 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-07887-6