Ramsey, L, Lawton, R, Sheard, L et al. (1 more author) (Cover date: January-December 2022) Exploring the sociocultural contexts in which healthcare staff respond to and use online patient feedback in practice: In-depth case studies of three NHS Trusts. Digital Health, 8. ISSN 2055-2076
Abstract
Objectives
Patients are increasingly reporting about their healthcare experiences online and NHS Trusts are adopting different approaches to responding. However, the sociocultural contexts underpinning these organisational approaches remain unclear. Therefore, we aimed to explore the sociocultural contexts underpinning three organisations who adopted different approaches to responding to online patient feedback.
Methods
Recruitment of three NHS Trusts was theoretically guided, and determined based on their different approaches to responding to online patient feedback (a nonresponding organisation, a generic responding organisation and an organisation providing transparent, conversational responses). Ethnographic methods were used during a year of fieldwork involving staff interviews, observations of practice and documentary analysis. Three in-depth case studies are presented.
Findings
The first organisation did not respond to or use online patient feedback as staff were busy firefighting volumes of concerns received in other ways. The second organisation adopted a generic responding style due to resource constraints, fears of public engagement and focus on resolving known issues raised via more traditional feedback sources. The final organisation provided transparent, conversational responses to patients online and described a 10-year journey enabling their desired culture to be embedded.
Conclusions
We identified a range of barriers facing organisations who ignore or provide generic responses to patient feedback online. We also demonstrated the sociocultural context in which online interactions between staff and patients can be embraced to inform improvement. However, this represented a slow and difficult organisational journey. Further research is needed to better establish how organisations can recognise and overcome barriers to engaging with online patient feedback, and at pace.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work as published without adaptation or alteration, without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | General, digital health, studies, qualitative, patient feedback, patient experience, patient safety |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Healthcare (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NIHR National Inst Health Research M24387 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 22 Dec 2022 13:40 |
Last Modified: | 22 Dec 2022 13:40 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publishing |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/20552076221129085 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:194620 |