Background: The care of clients with complex psychosocial problems involves diverse frontline professionals such as general practitioners, psychiatric nurses, police officers, social support... Show moreBackground: The care of clients with complex psychosocial problems involves diverse frontline professionals such as general practitioners, psychiatric nurses, police officers, social support consultants and debt counselors. As these professionals have different professional backgrounds and work in different organizations, their health conceptions, or beliefs about what constitutes health and how this should be pursued, may also differ. Having an understanding of various frontline professionals' health conceptions is relevant, as these may affect interprofessional collaboration in their work with clients with psychosocial problems. Objective: To understand various frontline professionals' health conceptions. Design: Inductive qualitative approach. Setting: The Hague, the Netherlands. Participants: Various frontline professionals from social welfare, general healthcare and mental healthcare, working with clients with complex psychosocial problems. Methods: Between September 2020 and April 2021, 23 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with frontline professionals in social welfare, general healthcare and mental healthcare. Based on these interviews, this paper analyzes frontline professionals' health conceptions. After transcription, all interviews were imported into ATLAS.ti for analysis. An iterative process of thematic analysis was used to identify health conception dimensions. Results: The paper found that frontline professionals' health conceptions differ in three main aspects: 1) health definitions, 2) alignment with clients and 3) contextualization of clients' health. Conclusions: The main implication of this research is that this inductive analysis of health conceptions provides a first building block in theorizing frontline professionals' health promotion practices. Tweetable abstract: Knowing about professional's health conceptions gives insight into how health is understood and how good health can best be achieved, which is important in caring for vulnerable clients. Show less
Background: Community learning is one approach to promote research competencies and to involve nurses and nursing students in research. This study examines the impact of community learning accord... Show moreBackground: Community learning is one approach to promote research competencies and to involve nurses and nursing students in research. This study examines the impact of community learning accord-ing to participants-both those inside and outside the community-in a joint nursing research project at a hospital. Method: A qualitative design was se-lected using a participatory approach. Data were col-lected through semistructured interviews, reflections, conversations, and patient input during 2 academic years. Results: Thematic analysis showed 11 themes, which were organized into three clusters: realization, transformation, and influencing factors. Participants perceived changes in practice and described how their perspectives have changed on care, education, and research. Reconsiderations led to some new or revised strategies, and influencing factors were asso-ciated with the contemporary context, degree of in-volvement, and design/facilitation. Conclusion: The impact of community learning emerged and extended beyond community boundaries, and the indicated in-fluencing factors must be taken into account. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2023;54(3):131-144.] Show less
Eijk, C.J.A. van; Vlegel-Brouwer, W. van der; Bussemaker, J. 2023
This explorative study aims to contribute to the debate about citizen involvement in (complex) medical and social issues. Our research goals are: (1) to explore the main opportunities, threats and... Show moreThis explorative study aims to contribute to the debate about citizen involvement in (complex) medical and social issues. Our research goals are: (1) to explore the main opportunities, threats and challenges to co-producing healthcare in vulnerable communities from the perspective of professionals, co-producers (i.e., citizens with a volunteering role) and service users (i.e., patients); (2) to distil lessons for public managers concerning the main issues involved in designing co-production initiatives. We studied co-production initiatives in the Dutch city, The Hague. These initiatives were part of a broader, unique movement named 'Healthy and Happy The Hague', which aims to change the way healthcare/social services are provided. Two intertwined research projects combine insights from interviews, focus group meetings and observations. The first project analyzed a variety of existing co-production initiatives in several neighborhoods; the second project involved longitudinal participatory action research on what stakeholders require to engage in co-production. The two research projects showed similarities and differences in the observed opportunities/treats/challenges. The study found that empowering citizens in their role as co-producers requires major changes in the professionals' outlook and supporting role in the communities. It illustrates the potential of synergizing insights from healthcare governance and public administration co-production literature to benefit co-production practice. Show less
This paper calls on social policy scholars to approach health differently in their research. Our goal is to bring core insights from social epidemiology into conversation with welfare state and... Show moreThis paper calls on social policy scholars to approach health differently in their research. Our goal is to bring core insights from social epidemiology into conversation with welfare state and social policy research. We argue that the social investment framework has the most potential for this integration. The objective of social investment policies is to keep modern welfare states sustainable through high employment and strong human capital. This requires not only a large and well-educated workforce, but also a healthy one. Specifically, we encourage social policy scholars to engage with the social determinants of health literature by studying health not as outcome of the healthcare sector but of the welfare state as a whole. We argue that the social investment framework facilitates these endeavours and we offer suggestions for future research. Health should not just be seen as an outcome of specific policies, but rather as input for a sustainable welfare state. Show less
Schmidt, E.; Schalk, J.; Ridder, M.; Pas, S. van der; Groeneveld, S.; Bussemaker, J. 2022
Purpose This illustrative case study describes and evaluates drivers of effective inter-organizational collaboration to mitigate the impact and spread of COVID-19 among homeless people in two... Show morePurpose This illustrative case study describes and evaluates drivers of effective inter-organizational collaboration to mitigate the impact and spread of COVID-19 among homeless people in two cities in the Netherlands. The aims of this study are: (1) to explore the strategic and operational policy responses in two local integrated care settings at the start of the crisis, (2) to identify best policy practices and lessons learned. The authors interpret and evaluate the findings by combining insights from the population health management (PHM) and collaborative governance literature. Design/methodology/approach The authors describe and illustrate the experiences of two Dutch municipalities, Rotterdam and The Hague, in the early policy responses to sudden operational challenges around the impact of COVID-19 on homeless people as experienced by local decision-makers, medical doctors and clients. Findings The authors show that best policy practices revolve around (1) using data and risk stratification methods for identifying and targeting populations at-risk in local policy making, and (2) having an inter-organizational data sharing architecture in place ex ante. These two factors were clear prerequisites for tailor-made policy responses for newly-defined groups at risk with the existing and well-documented vulnerable population, and executing crisis-induced tasks efficiently. Originality/value This paper is among the first to illustrate the potential of combining collaborative governance and PHM perspectives to identify key drivers of effective local governance responses to a healthcare crisis in an integrated care setting. Show less
