Kalendarium

Seminar: Reviewing and analyzing frameworks to support Healthcare improvement - reflections from a Q 3.0 perspective

Healthcare improvement continues to face challenges in achieving sustainable change, despite decades of effort. Healthcare improvement often fails to account for the complex, adaptive and relational nature of healthcare systems, where outcomes depend on how people interact, make sense of change and co-produce solutions. Furthermore, improvement science has expanded rapidly. It draws on diverse traditions, such as implementation science, organizational learning, systems thinking, complexity science and co-production. There is a wide range of theories, models and frameworks that describe different facets of healthcare. This diversity enriches the field, but it also creates fragmentation and makes it difficult to integrate insights across levels and disciplines.

To strengthen both scholarship and practice, there is a need to clarify how theoretical perspectives can better reflect in achieving sustainable change. In a recent exploration of improvement science an invitation was made “to refine and advance mapping of the improvement landscape by identifying gaps and increasing contributions from diverse perspectives” (Reed et al., 2025: 1). Our respond is a review and analysis to support the continued development of improvement science by linking theoretical concepts more explicitly to studies of the realities of healthcare and by offering a clearer foundation for education, leadership and practice.

This is the scope of our contribution to Co-Lab, including reflections regarding the results from a Q 3.0 perspective.

Recommended reading: Reed JE, Antonacci G, Armstrong N, Baker GR, Crowe S, Harenstam KP, Hargreaves D, Jani YH, Provost L, Rejler M, Savage C, Thor J, Williams S and Woodcock T (2025) What is improvement science, and what makes it different? An outline of the field and its frontiers. Front. Health Serv. 4:1454658. doi: 10.3389/frhs.2024.1454658

Bio: Boel Andersson Gäre is adjunct senior professor at the Department of Improvement and Leadership, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University/Jönköping Academy for Improvement of Health and welfare/Futurum, Region Jönköping County.

Caroline Ärleskog has a PhD in Sociology and works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Improvement and Leadership, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University/Jönköping Academy for Improvement of Health and welfare.

JA is part of Co-Lab, a seminar series on co-production led by the Dartmouth Institute with an international audience. The network organizes seminars every month and these are open to anyone who is curious about the subject. The seminar is in English. Please use this link >

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