Designing quality of care--contributions from parents: Parents' experiences of care processes in paediatric care and their contribution to improvements of the care process in collaboration with healthcare professionals.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this article was to explore whether current quality dimensions for health care services are sufficient to capture how parents perceive and contribute to quality of health care.


BACKGROUND
New quality improvement initiatives that actively involve patients must be examined with a critical view on established quality dimensions to ensure that these measures support patient involvement.


METHODS
This paper used a qualitative and descriptive design.


METHODS
This paper is based on interviews with parents participating in two experience-based co-design projects in a Swedish hospital that included qualitative content analysis of data from 12 parent interviews in paediatric care.


RESULTS
Health care professionals often overemphasize their own significance for value creation in care processes and underappreciate parents' ability to influence and contribute to better quality. However, quality is not based solely on how professionals accomplish their task, but is co-created by health care professionals and parents. Consequently, assessment of quality outcomes also must include parents' ability and context.


CONCLUSIONS
This paper questions current models of quality dimensions in health care, and suggests additional sub-dimensions, such as family quality and involvement quality.


CONCLUSIONS
This paper underscores the importance of involving parents in health care improvements with health care professionals to capture as many dimensions of quality as possible.
Skaraborg Hospital, Skövde, Sweden.|Division of Quality Sciences, Department of Technology Management and Economics, CHI-Centre for Healthcare Improvement, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Susanne
S
Gustavsson
Division of Quality Sciences, Department of Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Ida
I
Gremyr
Skaraborg Hospital, Skövde, Sweden.|Ersta Sköndal, Stockholm, Sweden.
Elisabeth
E
Kenne Sarenmalm
D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010372:Pediatrics; D013548:Sweden
co-creation; experience-based co-design; health care; parents; quality dimensions; service process; value