Health Services Under Pressure: a Scoping Review and Development of a Taxonomy of Adaptive Strategies

Objective: The objective of this review was to develop a taxonomy of pressures experienced by health services and an accompanying taxonomy of strategies for adapting in response to these pressures. The taxonomies were developed from a review of observational studies directly assessing care delivered in a variety of clinical environments.

Design: In the first phase, a scoping review of the relevant literature was conducted. In the second phase, pressures and strategies were systematically coded from the included papers, and categorised.

Data Sources: Electronic databases (MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PsycInfo and Scopus) and reference lists from recent reviews of the resilient healthcare literature.

Eligibility Criteria: Studies were included from the resilient healthcare literature, which used descriptive methodologies to directly assess a clinical environment. The studies were required to contain strategies for managing under pressure.

Results: 5402 potential articles were identified with 17 papers meeting the inclusion criteria. The principal source of pressure described in the studies was the demand for care exceeding capacity (ie, the resources available), which in turn led to difficult working conditions and problems with system functioning. Strategies for responding to pressures were categorised into anticipatory and on-the-day adaptations. Anticipatory strategies included strategies for increasing resources, controlling demand and plans for managing the workload (efficiency strategies, forward planning, monitoring and co-ordination strategies and staff support initiatives). On-the-day adaptations were categorised into: flexing the use of existing resources, prioritising demand and adapting ways of working (leadership, teamwork and communication strategies).

Conclusions: The review has culminated in an empirically based taxonomy of pressures and an accompanying taxonomy of strategies for adapting in response to these pressures. The taxonomies could help clinicians and managers to optimise how they respond to pressures and may be used as the basis for training programmes and future research evaluating the impact of different strategies.