Health promotion at hospitals: Evaluation of a comprehensive implementation project of generic methods for patient involvement

Introduction: Patient involvement (PI) is high on the international agenda as a means of promoting the patients' health. Although PI is considered as an overall mechanism for empowering and engaging patients more actively in health care, the rhetoric about PI is not easily translated into healthcare activities in hospitals. In 2014, the Danish Knowledge Center for User Involvement in Health Care, Aarhus University Hospital and Aarhus University launched a large-scale project with the objective to develop tools and implementation strategies for applying the generic methods shared decision making and user-led health care across diverse medical specialties. Twenty-eight clinical departments were invited to participate and 18 were enrolled. Ineach department, an interdisciplinary clinical team was composed to develop a PI initiative based freely on one of the two methods. A skill-building course was designed with inspiration from the experimental learning model.
Materials and methods: We evaluated the implementation of the two methods for PI with a particular focus on the health professionals’ perspective on the process. Two years after the project started and Again eight months later, we assessed the proportion of departments that had implemented their initiatives. Further, we conducted nine focus group interviews with representatives from the clinical teams. Data was approached by ‘thematic analysis’. The study was approved by the Danish Data Protection Agency (J.no. 1-16-02-621-14) and the participants gave informed consent by participating.
Results: A total of 21 initiatives were launched (one department had four separate initiatives) and 13 initiatives have been fully implemented. Health staff highlighted five important facilitators for successful development and implementation of one of the two generic methods: 1) Patients' voice is an important motivator; 2) The interdisciplinary teams must be well-composed; 3) The team members themselves must develop the initiatives and related tools; 4) Engaged leaders at all organizational levels is crucial; 5) Successful embedding of the new initiatives in routine practice depends largely on support from colleagues.
Conclusion: The study helps to understand the importance of adequate support to the clinicians who are at the forefront of the realization of a health promotion culture in hospitals.