University of Twente Student Theses

Login

Recommendations to improve non-medical innovation that creates higher patient satisfaction

Veldboom, Mark (2012) Recommendations to improve non-medical innovation that creates higher patient satisfaction.

[img]

PDF
1MB

Abstract:	Developments in the Dutch healthcare sector, such as the new system of healthcare insurance, force the healthcare providers' to respond as competition has increased and demand has changed. The ability to innovate effectively and efficiently is becoming important. Furthermore, the focus is shifting from merely quality of care as competitive factor, towards patient satisfaction. Especially for hospitals this leads to challenges. Non-medical innovation is very important for both quality of care and patient satisfaction. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the practices for non-medical innovation in hospitals. The aim of this research was to increase the knowledge on the non-medical innovation practices by answering the following research question: What are best practices for non-medical innovation in Dutch hospitals that creates higher patient satisfaction? The best practices and relations from service innovation literature were combined in a “service innovation success factors model”. This model was adapted for non-medical innovation through case study research in five innovation projects in Dutch hospitals. These projects all had the common purpose to create higher patient satisfaction. The findings from these case studies have led to a “non-medical innovation success factors model” for Dutch hospitals. This model describes the success factors for non-medical innovation, corresponding practices, influencing variables and relations, and so provides an overview of the important aspects in a non-medical innovation project. However, due to the design of the research, no best practices could be found. But several commonly used practices for non-medical innovation in Dutch hospitals could be discovered, for example to involve at least a representative sample of the patient population in the innovation project, to use information about patients from all available sources, and to create a network of hospital managers to share innovation project solutions. Moreover, the case study findings have also shown support for the type of service as a moderating variable. The variable has influence on the non-medical innovation process, the level of patient involvement and the dominant content of patient information used in the innovation project. An important implication for Dutch hospital managers is that they have to determine the type of service that is being improved (customer-routed/SDL or provider-routed/GDL). Further research should focus on expanding and testing the “non-medical innovation success factors model” from research perspectives: ‘Best practices’, ‘contingency theory’ and ‘configurations approach’. Before testing the relations, the different variables should be better operationalized. The “service innovation success factors model”, distilled from service innovation literature, could be adapted for other (healthcare) sectors and countries as well.
Item Type:	Essay (Master)
Faculty:	BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:	85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:	Business Administration MSc (60644)
Link to this item:	https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/61462
Export this item as:	BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager

Show download statistics for this publication

Repository Staff Only: item control page