Search results

In this viewpoint article, the authors recognize the increased focus in health systems on co-design for innovation and change. This article explores the role of leaders and mangers in developing and enhancing a culture of trust in their organizations to enable co-design, with the potential to drive innovation and change in healthcare.

Using social science analyses, the authors argue that current co-design literature has limited focus on interactions between senior leaders and managers, and healthcare staff and service users in supporting co-designed innovation and change. The authors draw on social and health science studies of trust to highlight how the value-based co-design process needs to be supported and enhanced. We outline what co-design innovation and change involve in a health system, conceptualize trust and reflect on its importance within the health system, and finally note the role of senior leaders and managers in supporting trust and responsiveness for co-designed innovation and change.

Healthcare needs leaders and managers to embrace co-design that drives innovation now and in the future through people – leading to better healthcare for society at large. As authors we argue that it is now the time to shift our focus on the role of senior managers and leaders to embed co-design into health and social care structures, through creating and nurturing a culture of trust.

Building public trust in the health system and interpersonal trust within the health system is an ongoing process that relies upon personal behavior of managers and senior leaders, organizational practices within the system, as well as political processes that underpin these practices. By implementing managerial, leadership and individual practices on all levels, senior managers and leaders provide a mechanism to increase both trust and responsiveness for co-design that supports innovation and change in the health system.

HealthPathways is an online decision support portal, primarily aimed at General Practitioners (GPs), that provides easy to access and up to date clinical, referral and resource pathways. It is free to access, with the intent of providing the right care, at the right place, at the right time. This case study focuses on the experience and learnings of a HealthPathways program in metropolitan Sydney during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reviews the team's program management responses and looks at key factors that have facilitated the spread and scale of HealthPathways.

Available data and experiences of two HealthPathways program managers were used to recount events and aspects influencing spread and scale.

The key factors for successful spread and scale are a coordinated response, the maturity of the HealthPathways program, having a single source of truth, high level governance, leadership, collaboration, flexible funding and ability to make local changes where required.

There are limited published articles on HealthPathways. The focus of spread and scale of HealthPathways during COVID-19 is unique.