This collection of critical ideas relating organization science to operations and accomplishments in the health care environment provides a thematic guide for leaders, practitioners, academics and administrators. It pulls in a broad cross-section of perspectives on the important linkage of scholarship and practice with a solid global perspective.

Organisational Development in Healthcare introduces the practical ways in which change in health services can be promoted. It includes descriptions of all of the most important approaches to change currently being used in the NHS, discussion of when they work best and details of the evidence of their impact.

Organisational development (OD) as a practice involves an ongoing, systematic process of implementing effective organisational change. OD is both a field of applied science focused on understanding and managing organisational change and a field of scientific study and inquiry. It is interdisciplinary in nature and draws on sociology, psychology, particularly industrial and organisational psychology, and theories of motivation, learning, and personality. Organisation Development in Healthcare: A Critical Appraisal for Practitioners provides both an overview of the evolution of OD in healthcare as a field of practice and as a challenge to its future development. It examines the underlying assumptions behind OD and tracks its historical growth in healthcare, with special attention devoted to the UK’s National Health Service. The unusual nature of healthcare organisations delivering human services through the work of professionals who are subject to emotional labor and are addressing society’s wicked problems provides a unique context. A range of challenges for healthcare OD are identified, including questions of conformists or deviant innovation; organisations as machines or systems; hierarchy versus democracy; the importance of power and emotion and possible future ways forward for healthcare OD are suggested. Examples and short case studies from both the UK and the US to illustrate the benefits of OD are included.

In a world saturated with the “how tos” of OD, there is a void of evidence-based resources for both organizational leaders and OD scholar-practitioners to use as a guide while navigating the complex and chaotic environment of healthcare. This handbook has been created to fill this space and provide a resource for this vital audience at a time of great change and greater potential in the healthcare arena. The handbook will focus on the critical nature of OD in healthcare and how it applies in this unique environment; examining its broad use from hospitals to corporate offices and from small systems to multinational corporations. The book will provide research-based, practical processes and methods, while sharing compelling cases of how the compassion and care associated with healthcare is wound tightly with the OD work it encompasses.The handbook will also offer a comprehensive look at the role OD plays in the critical issues and significant changes facing healthcare today. The handbook overall is a small part history and a small part predictions surrounding very practical and applicable uses of OD In healthcare. Through the sharing of engagement processes, revealing outcomes and connecting each concept to a living case of how OD has impacted the healthcare field, this handbook provides a unique resource for OD and HR professionals, healthcare executives, MHA students and the academic community.

This title was first published in 2002: Health systems across the globe face similar problems: controlling costs while maintaining or improving health care quality and access. Notwithstanding the unprecedented health system reforms of the past decades, many outstanding problems remain in these areas. Drawing on experts from Europe and America this eclectic collection of leading edge research examines the impact of organizational development on improving quality and efficiency in health care. A series of chapters provide accounts of organizational reconfiguration in the UK and elsewhere. The contributors examine how structural and procedural changes must be matched by the development of human resource services if increases in efficiency and effectiveness are to be achieved. The book will be of interest to health care academics, policy makers, managers and practitioners who are interested in keeping abreast of the latest developments in health care research.