Clinicians' psychological empowerment to engage in management as part of their daily work.

PURPOSE: The purpose of the article is to analyze how physicians and nurses, as the two major health care professions, experience psychological empowerment for managerial work. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The study was designed as a qualitative interview study at four primary care centers (PCCs) in Sweden. In total, 47 interviews were conducted, mainly with physicians and nurses. The first inductive analysis led us to the concept of psychological empowerment, which was used in the next deductive step of the analysis. FINDINGS: The study showed that both professions experienced self-determination for managerial work, but that nurses were more dependent on structural empowerment. Nurses experienced that they had competence for managerial work, whereas physicians were more ignorant of such competence. Nurses used managerial work to create impact on the conditions for their clinical work, whereas physicians experienced impact independently. Both nurses and physicians experienced managerial work as meaningful, but less meaningful than nurses and physicians' clinical work. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: For an effective health care system, structural changes in terms of positions, roles, and responsibilities can be an important route for especially nurses' psychological empowerment. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The qualitative method provided a complementary understanding of psychological empowerment on how psychological empowerment interacted with other factors. One such aspect was nurses' higher dependence on structural empowerment, but the most important aspect was that both physicians and nurses experienced that managerial work was less meaningful than clinical work. This implies that psychological empowerment for managerial work may only make a difference if psychological empowerment does not compete with physicians' and nurses' clinical work.

Patients' perceptions of quality in Swedish primary care - a study of differences between private and public ownership.

PURPOSE: The purpose of the paper is to describe and analyze differences in patients' quality perceptions of private and public primary care centers in Sweden. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The article explores the differences in quality perceptions between patients of public and private primary care centers based on data from a large patient survey in Sweden. The survey covers seven dimensions, and in this paper the measure Overall impression was used for the comparison. With more than 80,000 valid responses, the survey covers all primary care centers in Sweden which allowed for a detailed analysis of differences in quality perceptions among patients from the different categories of owners. FINDINGS: The article contributes with a detailed description of different types of private owners: not-for-profit and for profit, as well as corporate groups and independent care centers. The results show a higher quality perception for independent centers compared to both public and corporate groups. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: The small number of not-for-profit centers (21 out of 1,117 centers) does not allow for clear conclusions for this group. The results, however, indicate an even higher patient quality perception for not-for-profit centers. The study focus on describing differences in quality perceptions between the owner categories. Future research can contribute with explanations to why independent care centers receive higher patient satisfaction. SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS: The results from the study have policy implications both in a Swedish as well as international perspective. The differentiation between different types of private owners made in this paper opens up for interesting discussions on privatization of healthcare and how it affects patient satisfaction. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The main contribution of the paper is the detailed comparison of different categories of private owners and the public owners.

Interprofessional Barriers: A Study of Quality Improvement Work Among Nurses and Physicians.

This article studies interprofessional barriers between nurses and physicians in the context of quality improvement work. A total of 17 nurses and 10 physicians were interviewed at 2 hospitals in Sweden. The study uncovered a number of barriers relating to both the relative status of each group and their defined areas of responsibility.

Involvement Drivers: A Study of Nurses and Physicians in Improvement Work.

This article reports on the involvement of nurses and physicians in improvement work, with a special focus on the drivers. The purpose was to describe how the nurse and physician groups understand involvement drivers for improvement work and to explain the differences in how they understand involvement. The study was conducted at 2 Swedish hospitals, and a total of 20 nurses and 10 physicians were interviewed. The theoretical framework, developed by an interpretative approach, identifies and describes a number of involvement drivers. On clustering the drivers into larger involvement factors, the study shows clear differences and profiles in terms of the 2 groups' perception and understanding of the involvement-drivers. Each group's profile was then analyzed on the basis of concept of professional culture.

Revisiting empowerment: a study of improvement work in health care teams.

This article reports on a study of team empowerment in a large clinic at a Swedish hospital. The focus of the study was to understand how a high degree of empowerment enabled the teams to develop and sustain a high level of performance. More specifically, a model of empowerment was used to identify important factors that contribute to team empowerment in 3 teams at the clinic. In the analysis of the empirical data, 21 factors were identified and the degree of empowerment in the 3 teams was assessed.