Patient Flow or the Patient’s Journey? Exploring Health Care Providers’ Experiences and Understandings of Implementing a Care Pathway to Improve the Quality of Transitional Care for Older People

Abstract

Internationally, the implementation of care pathways is a common strategy for making transitional care for older people more effective and patient-centered. Previous research highlights inherent tensions in care pathways, particularly in relation to their patient-centered aspects, which may cause dilemmas for health care providers. Health care providers’ understandings and experiences of this, however, remain unclear. Our aim was to explore health care providers’ experiences and understandings of implementing a care pathway to improve transitional care for older people. We conducted semistructured interviews with 20 health care providers and three key persons, along with participant observations of 22 meetings, in a Norwegian quality improvement collaborative. Through a thematic analysis, we identified an understanding of the care pathway as both patient flow and the patient’s journey and a dilemma between the two, and we discuss how the negotiation of conflicting institutional logics is a central part of care pathway implementation.