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The involvement of medical doctors in hospital governance and implications for quality management: a quick scan in 19 and an in depth study in 7 OECD countries

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Health Services Research, May 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (86th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (86th percentile)

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18 X users
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2 Facebook pages

Citations

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38 Dimensions

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162 Mendeley
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Title
The involvement of medical doctors in hospital governance and implications for quality management: a quick scan in 19 and an in depth study in 7 OECD countries
Published in
BMC Health Services Research, May 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12913-016-1396-4
Pubmed ID
Authors

A. M. Rotar, D. Botje, N. S. Klazinga, K. M. Lombarts, O. Groene, R. Sunol, T. Plochg

Abstract

Hospital governance is broadening its orientation from cost and production controls towards 'improving performance on clinical outcomes'. Given this new focus one might assume that doctors are drawn into hospital management across OECD countries. Hospital performance in terms of patient health, quality of care and efficiency outcomes is supposed to benefit from their involvement. However, international comparative evidence supporting this idea is limited. Just a few studies indicate that there may be a positive relationship between medical doctors being part of hospital boards, and overall hospital performance. More importantly, the assumed relationship between these so-called doctor managers and hospital performance has remained a 'black-box' thus far. However, there is an increasing literature on the implementation of quality management systems in hospitals and their relation with improved performance. It seems therefore fair to assume that the relation between the involvement of doctors in hospital management and improved hospital performance is partly mediated via quality management systems. The threefold aim of this paper is to 1) perform a quick scan of the current situation with regard to doctor managers in hospital management in 19 OECD countries, 2) explore the phenomenon of doctor managers in depth in 7 OECD countries, and 3) investigate whether doctor involvement in hospital management is associated with more advanced implementation of quality management systems. This study draws both on a quick scan amongst country coordinators in OECD's Health Care Quality Indicator program, and on the DUQuE project which focused on the implementation of quality management systems in European hospitals. This paper reports two main findings. First, medical doctors fulfil a broad scope of managerial roles at departmental and hospital level but only partly accompanied by formal decision making responsibilities. Second, doctor managers having more formal decision making responsibilities in strategic hospital management areas is positively associated with the level of implementation of quality management systems. Our findings suggest that doctors are increasingly involved in hospital management in OECD countries, and that this may lead to better implemented quality management systems, when doctors take up managerial roles and are involved in strategic management decision making.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 18 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 162 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Spain 2 1%
Unknown 160 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 34 21%
Researcher 14 9%
Student > Ph. D. Student 13 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 11 7%
Student > Postgraduate 9 6%
Other 37 23%
Unknown 44 27%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 43 27%
Business, Management and Accounting 22 14%
Nursing and Health Professions 18 11%
Social Sciences 8 5%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 7 4%
Other 16 10%
Unknown 48 30%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 13. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 November 2021.
All research outputs
#2,861,136
of 25,546,214 outputs
Outputs from BMC Health Services Research
#1,231
of 8,703 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#48,065
of 349,118 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Health Services Research
#13
of 88 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,546,214 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 88th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 8,703 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.3. This one has done well, scoring higher than 85% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 349,118 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 88 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its contemporaries.