Improving care coordination using organisational routines: Care pathways as a coordination mechanism
Journal of Health Organization and Management
ISSN: 1477-7266
Article publication date: 21 March 2016
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to systematically apply theory of organisational routines to standardised care pathways. The explanatory power of routines is used to address open questions in the care pathway literature about their coordinating and organising role, the way they change and can be replicated, the way they are influenced by the organisation and the way they influence health care professionals.
Design/methodology/approach
Theory of routines is systematically applied to care pathways in order to develop theoretically derived propositions.
Findings
Care pathways mirror routines by being recurrent, collective and embedded and specific to an organisation. In particular, care pathways resemble standard operating procedures that can give rise to recurrent collective action patterns. In all, 11 propositions related to five categories are proposed by building on these insights: care pathways and coordination, change, replication, the organisation and health care professionals.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is conceptual and uses care pathways as illustrative instances of hospital routines. The propositions provide a starting point for empirical research.
Practical implications
The analysis highlights implications that health care professionals and managers have to consider in relation to coordination, change, replication, the way the organisation influences care pathways and the way care pathways influence health care professionals.
Originality/value
Theory on organisational routines offers fundamental, yet unexplored, insights into hospital processes, including in particular care coordination.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Preliminary versions of this paper were presented at the 8th International Organisation Behaviour in Healthcare Conference, Dublin, April 2012 and the European Care Pathway Conference, Amsterdam, June 2012. The author is grateful to the editor and reviewer, Markus Becker, Jody Hoffer Gittell, and Kjeld Møller Pedersen and participants at the above conferences for many helpful comments and suggestions. All remaining errors and omissions are the sole responsibility of the author. The research was financed by an unrestricted grant from The Regional Hospital in Silkeborg, Denmark. The research was completed while being employed as PhD student at the Department of Business and Economics, University of Southern Denmark.
Citation
Prætorius, T. (2016), "Improving care coordination using organisational routines: Care pathways as a coordination mechanism", Journal of Health Organization and Management, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 85-108. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHOM-07-2013-0141
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited