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• The overall project: Developing migrant-friendly
hospitals •
Sustainable improvements of complex organisations, like hospitals,
can be achieved only within the framework of an overall organisational
development process. To initiate and foster such a process, the
MFH project set up an “overall project”, starting
with establishing project teams in all partner hospitals. These
teams took responsibility for all further project related activities
within their hospitals, took the lead in marketing the idea and
acted as focal points for the European project coordination.
In line with quality management procedures, the overall project
started with (1) conducting a needs assessment within the partner
hospitals which integrated perspectives of clients, staff and
hospital management and (2) with a literature
review >> on available knowledge concerning health and
health care problems and possible solutions related to migrant
status. This review grouped interventions in four areas –
communication, responsiveness, empowerment and monitoring –
and it highlighted the relevance, principle options and evidence
for effectiveness of interventions in these areas.
Local overall projects oriented themselves at the basic principles
forming the core of a migrant friendly hospital mission statement
defined in the European project:
- valuing diversity by accepting people with diverse backgrounds
as principally equal members of society;
- identifying the needs of people with diverse backgrounds
and monitoring and developing services with regard to these
needs;
- and finally, compensating for disadvantages arising from
diverse backgrounds.
An assessment instrument was developed: the Migrant Friendly Quality
Questionnaire (MFQQ) to assess the status quo of overall “migrant-friendliness”
concerning services and (quality) management structures Results
were used to allow for benchmarking within the group of participating
hospitals. The MFQQ proved useful in systematically assessing
migrant-friendly structures such as interpreting services, information
material for migrant patients, culturally sensitive services (religion,
food), as well as components of a (quality) management system
to enable and assure the migrant-friendliness of services, e.g.
the integration of migrant-friendliness into mission statements,
budgeting, and staff development programmes. The MFQQ was used
for two assessments (2003 and 2004) within the 12 European Partner
Hospitals and – additionally – for 5 observer hospitals
in Germany and Ireland, all locally organised within the Health
Promoting Hospitals network. It proved to be feasible and informative,
but experiences also indicate areas for further improvement.
On the basis of the results of the needs assessment, of the first
MFQQ assessment of structures and quality systems, and the review's
identification of the most common problems and solutions, a first
picture of MFH-related problems and ways to handle them could
be drawn, followed by decisions concerning the implementation
of three subprojects.
In addition to their activities within the three thematically
focused subprojects, some hospitals engaged in further action
within the overall project, e.g. by integrating migrant-friendliness
criteria into their strategy development (regulation of basic
values, EFQM self-assessment, strategic aims and Balanced Scorecard),
by improving hotel and religious services for a migrant clientele,
and by implementing migrant-friendly information material (translation
of relevant information about the department, discharge and follow-up
procedures, improving signposts using pictograms).
The first assessment in 2003 showed a heterogeneous European hospital
group, with some hospitals listing many existing migrant-friendly
services and having a well-established management structure in
place, but with other hospitals showing considerable areas for
further development. The results after one year of work within
the European project showed that the majority of hospitals could
use the project for considerable improvements both on the level
of services as well as for developing their quality management
systems. Detailed results are to be found in the presentations
that were made on the occasion of the project group's final business
meeting (included in this report).
The experiences made so far as well as collected data provide a
good basis for further development.
• Results,
Tools, Focus Groups >>
• Email:
uschi.trummer@univie.ac.at
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