Varieties of improvement expertise: Knowledge and contestation in health-care improvement

Alan Cribb; Vikki Entwistle; Polly Mitchell

doi:10.1111/1467-9566.13616

Varieties of improvement expertise: Knowledge and contestation in health-care improvement

Alan Cribb^* (Corresponding Author), Vikki Entwistle, Polly Mitchell

^*Corresponding author for this work

Health Services Research Unit (HSRU)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The 'improvement' of health care is now established and growing as a field of research and practice. This article, based on qualitative data from interviews with 21 senior leaders in this field, analyses the growth of improvement expertise as not simply an expansion but also a multiplication of 'ways of knowing'. It illustrates how health-care improvement is an area where contests about relevant kinds of knowledge, approaches and purposes proliferate and intersect. One dimension of this story relates to the increasing relevance of sociological expertise-both as a disciplinary contributor to this arena of research and practice and as a spur to reflexive critique. The analysis highlights the threat of persistent hierarchies within improvement expertise reproducing and amplifying restricted conceptions of both improvement and 'better' health care.

Original language	English
Number of pages	20
Journal	Sociology of Health & Illness
Early online date	27 Jan 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13616
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 27 Jan 2023

Keywords

expertise
health service organisations
norms and values
quality of care
research and policy
sociology of scientific knowledge

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10.1111/1467-9566.13616Licence: CC BY

Cribb_etal_SHI_Varieties_Of_Improvement_VoR
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2023 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Final published version, 162 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Varieties of improvement expertise: Knowledge and contestation in health-care improvement",

abstract = "The 'improvement' of health care is now established and growing as a field of research and practice. This article, based on qualitative data from interviews with 21 senior leaders in this field, analyses the growth of improvement expertise as not simply an expansion but also a multiplication of 'ways of knowing'. It illustrates how health-care improvement is an area where contests about relevant kinds of knowledge, approaches and purposes proliferate and intersect. One dimension of this story relates to the increasing relevance of sociological expertise-both as a disciplinary contributor to this arena of research and practice and as a spur to reflexive critique. The analysis highlights the threat of persistent hierarchies within improvement expertise reproducing and amplifying restricted conceptions of both improvement and 'better' health care.",

keywords = "expertise, health service organisations, norms and values, quality of care, research and policy, sociology of scientific knowledge",

author = "Alan Cribb and Vikki Entwistle and Polly Mitchell",

note = "Funding information Wellcome Trust, Grant/Award Number: 209811/Z/17/Z ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust (Grant number 209811/Z/17/Z). For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission. In addition we would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful suggestions.",

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AU - Cribb, Alan

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AU - Mitchell, Polly

N1 - Funding information Wellcome Trust, Grant/Award Number: 209811/Z/17/Z ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust (Grant number 209811/Z/17/Z). For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission. In addition we would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful suggestions.

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AB - The 'improvement' of health care is now established and growing as a field of research and practice. This article, based on qualitative data from interviews with 21 senior leaders in this field, analyses the growth of improvement expertise as not simply an expansion but also a multiplication of 'ways of knowing'. It illustrates how health-care improvement is an area where contests about relevant kinds of knowledge, approaches and purposes proliferate and intersect. One dimension of this story relates to the increasing relevance of sociological expertise-both as a disciplinary contributor to this arena of research and practice and as a spur to reflexive critique. The analysis highlights the threat of persistent hierarchies within improvement expertise reproducing and amplifying restricted conceptions of both improvement and 'better' health care.

KW - expertise

KW - health service organisations

KW - norms and values

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KW - research and policy

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SN - 0141-9889

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Varieties of improvement expertise: Knowledge and contestation in health-care improvement

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Keywords

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