Rocco Palumbo, Carmela Annarumma and Marco Musella
Patient empowerment has been variously depicted as a new paradigm inspiring the patient-provider relationship. To the authors’ knowledge, scholars have focused most of their…
Abstract
Purpose
Patient empowerment has been variously depicted as a new paradigm inspiring the patient-provider relationship. To the authors’ knowledge, scholars have focused most of their attention on patient enablement. Alternatively, the ability of health care organizations to establish a comfortable and co-creating partnership with the patients has been overlooked. In an attempt to fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to delve into the meaningfulness of health care organizations, embracing the “organizational health literacy” perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
In line with the exploratory nature of this research, a multiple case study approach was taken. It concerned three large public hospitals operating within the Italian National Health Service. The meaningfulness of health care organizations was investigated drawing on the organizational health literacy construct.
Findings
The health care organizations were unaware of several crucial issues to improve their meaningfulness. Problematic organizational health literacy was found to prevent patient involvement and to negatively affect the quality of interaction between the patients and the health care professionals.
Practical implications
Inadequate organizational health literacy impoverishes the ability of health care organizations to empower the patients and to engage them in value co-creation. The institutional purposes of empowering the patients and involving them in the provision of care require tailored interventions intended to improve organizational meaningfulness.
Originality/value
This is one of the first attempts to examine the meaningfulness of health care organizations through the lenses of organizational health literacy. Both quality of care and health outcomes are expected to benefit from the enhancement of organizational health literacy.
Details
Keywords
Rocco Palumbo, Carmela Annarumma, Paola Adinolfi and Marco Musella
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the changing patterns of users’ behavior in the health care service system. Although patient engagement and health services’ co-production…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the changing patterns of users’ behavior in the health care service system. Although patient engagement and health services’ co-production are understood as essential ingredients in the recipe for sustainable health systems, some determinants to patient involvement are still widely neglected by both policy makers and health care professionals. Among others, inadequate health literacy performs as a significant barrier to patient empowerment.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey aimed at objectively measuring health literacy-related skills was administered to a random sample of 600 Italian patients. The Italian version of the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) was used to assess the ability of the respondents to deal with written health information. Moreover, the respondents were asked to self-report their ability to navigate the health system. It was presumed that inadequate health literacy as measured by the NVS is related with impaired self-reported functional, interactive, and critical health-related competencies, paving the way for the inability and the unwillingness of patients to be involved in the health care provision.
Findings
About half of the sample showed inadequate health literacy. However, poor NVS scores were only slightly associated with limited self-reported functional, interactive, and critical health-related competencies. In general, patients with inadequate health-related skills were not likely to be engaged in the provision of health services. Elderly, people suffering from financial deprivation and less educated individuals were found to be at special risk of living with limited health literacy.
Practical implications
Limited health literacy is a common and relevant issue among people dealing with the health care service system. The impaired ability to collect, process, and use health information produces barriers to patient engagement and prevents the evolution of patients’ behavior toward health care co-production.
Originality/value
Health literacy is a widely overlooked issue in the Italian national health system. This paper contributes in shedding light on the determinants and effects of health literacy of Italian hospital patients. Besides, some insights on the validity of the methodological tools typically used to assess health-related skills are provided.
Details
Keywords
Nicola Capolupo, Gabriella Piscopo and Carmela Annarumma
The aim of this paper is to address the value co-creation and co-production theories in public administration (P.A.) sector, particularly when public administration communicates…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to address the value co-creation and co-production theories in public administration (P.A.) sector, particularly when public administration communicates with citizens during catastrophes, to provide a state of the art of the theoretical approach and its evolution.
Design/methodology/approach
Authors collected data between August and October 2017 from Scopus and Sciencedirect, looking for journals publications from 2010 to 2017, considering only articles containing in the abstract, title and keywords the following combinations: value co-creation AND P.A., value coproduction AND “P.A., crisis communication” AND “P.A.”.
Findings
By using three different keywords it appeared that the results of the individual topic contain results of all the other topics as well. It means that searching “value co-creation” AND “P.A.” appeared contributions of “value co-production” and “crisis communication” and vice-versa. The second reached result was to inscribe the theoretical approach of value co-creation into the interaction between citizens and public administration.
Research limitations/implications
Firstly, concentrating the research only on most recent articles from peer reviewed journals tends to exclude conference paper and other eventual contributions. Secondly, because the SLR has been conducted by searching with the keywords, only articles, which appeared in relation to the keywords connection in those databases, have been selected, excluding those papers closed to the themes, but classified under other terms.
Originality/value
This work value consists of trying to contextualize crisis communication during natural disasters in a theoretical context different from that which literature usually considers, i.e. value co-creation between public administration and citizens.