University of Twente Student Theses

Login

Nurse-driven innovation and the effect of bottom-up decision-making structure in hospitals

Güngör, B. (2021) Nurse-driven innovation and the effect of bottom-up decision-making structure in hospitals.

[img] PDF
1MB
Abstract:Background: Nurses provide around 80% of care in hospitals and are the main undertakers of hospital processes and users of technology. Nurses are a diverse, knowledgeable and experienced group, however, they are often not listened to and not involved in decision-making processes. Objective: The objective of this research is to understand how involving nurses, through a bottom-up decision-making approach may contribute to employee-driven innovation within hospitals in the Netherlands. Materials and methods: 8 interviews were conducted with 7 nurses in the Netherlands and 1 nurse in the US. Findings: Nurses generally agree that not enough recognition takes place and that decisions made on their behalf can create negative effects such as lack of motivation, the feeling of hopelessness and lack of employee retention. Furthermore, it is believed that hospitals need to implement teams, educators, coaches and lines of communication within the hospital hierarchy to increase collaboration and communication. Allowing for nurse involvement in decision-making will lead to higher levels of satisfaction, employee retention and motivation. Overall, it is agreed that nurses are a creative, diverse and motivated group. Furthermore, nurses with less experience in their job positions are often not involved in any strategic meetings, and only operational meetings. Examples were given of how nurses can create profound effects when involved in decision-making early on in projects, which have increased the productivity of workspaces, as well as introduced new processes, layouts and technologies. Conclusion: A bottom-up approach to decision-making assists in creating a motivated, satisfied and innovative workforce, furthermore, in creating nurse-driven innovation it is required to implement educators, coaches and innovation-based teams as well as create lines of communication and strategy focused meetings throughout hospitals, however, a major concern of nurses is their lack of time for non-patient related business. All in all, driving nurse innovation through a bottom-up approach is in favour of all parties involved, the hospitals, the nurses, the patients and the overall healthcare system. Furthermore, this research and the results are in line with the previous studies of Høyrup (2010-2012) in which employee-driven innovation was introduced in detail.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:International Business Administration BSc (50952)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/86574
Export this item as:BibTeX
EndNote
HTML Citation
Reference Manager

 

Repository Staff Only: item control page