Organisational Resilience

Project summary

This research will examine and evaluate the concept of organizational resilience in relation to that of high reliability within healthcare, focusing on infection prevention as a tracer issue. Our overall aim is to understand the factors relating to resilience, to assist healthcare organizations to make the cultural and system changes required to improve the safety of care delivered to patients, specifically infection prevention outcomes.

The concept of resilience has been explored in other research disciplines, such as psychology, ecology and information technology. Analogies have been drawn between resilience in these domains and organizational resilience, where resilience is understood as the ability of organizations to respond effectively to significant change over time. The research field, as it stands currently, is limited by the low number of empirical studies that exist. Most research comments on the criteria that comprise a resilient organisation or surmises the factors that facilitate resilience in organizations.

We have, through some preliminary research into resilience, some understanding of the factors that contribute to healthcare organizations developing resilience to infections that compromise patient safety. Given the intense focus on infection prevention, this study will extend this inquiry using theoretical, empirical and longitudinal research based on national clinical datasets. 

Aim

Our principle aim is to understand the concept of resilience better in relation to healthcare and high reliability systems. The research will focus on the area of infection prevention and control. The research has the following objectives:

• To examine the concept of resilience, in relation to organizations
• To explore any relationship between high reliability and resilient organizations
• To review resilience in healthcare in the UK, in relation to the tracer issue of infection prevention and control

Method

We are using a multi-method approach. A systematic literature review will be undertaken of the concept of resilience and compared to the outcomes of a case study review in a healthcare trust that has demonstrated resilience in relation to infection rates. The criteria that imply resilience will then be applied to an empirical study using nationally available clinical datasets. Qualitative research; interviews, document review and surveys will be used to investigate further sites that indicate high or low resilience.