Achieving high performance in healthcare institutions: a longitudinal perspective

Abstract

Quality improvement of healthcare institutions has become increasingly important these past decades, mainly due to demographic developments. At the same time the sector is suffering from political and budgetary pressures which makes quality improvement a tall order. As a result, healthcare institutions have been searching for frameworks which can help them in difficult circumstance to improve their quality by increasing their dynamic capabilities and organisational competencies. This research set out to identify such a framework. On the basis of a review of the extant literature the HPO Framework was chosen and subsequently applied at three Dutch nursing home care institutions. In a period of three years the HPO Diagnosis was performed at the three institutions. This yielded information on their status on the way to high performance and attention points which they needed to address to help them further along their journey. Based on an analysis of the transformation process, the experiences and lessons learned from each institution were identified and summarised. All institutions had made progress and achieved better organisational results because of the application of the HPO Framework.