Large‐System Transformation in Health Care: A Realist Review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
CONTEXT: An evidence base that addresses issues of complexity and context is urgently needed for large-system transformation (LST) and health care reform. Fundamental conceptual and methodological challenges also must be addressed. The Saskatchewan Ministry of Health in Canada requested a six-month synthesis project to guide four major policy development and strategy initiatives focused on patient- and family-centered care, primary health care renewal, quality improvement, and surgical wait lists. The aims of the review were to analyze examples of successful and less successful transformation initiatives, to synthesize knowledge of the underlying mechanisms, to clarify the role of government, and to outline options for evaluation. METHODS: We used realist review, whose working assumption is that a particular intervention triggers particular mechanisms of change. Mechanisms may be more or less effective in producing their intended outcomes, depending on their interaction with various contextual factors. We explain the variations in outcome as the interplay between context and mechanisms. We nested this analytic approach in a macro framing of complex adaptive systems (CAS). FINDINGS: Our rapid realist review identified five "simple rules" of LST that were likely to enhance the success of the target initiatives: (1) blend designated leadership with distributed leadership; (2) establish feedback loops; (3) attend to history; (4) engage physicians; and (5) include patients and families. These principles play out differently in different contexts affecting human behavior (and thereby contributing to change) through a wide range of different mechanisms. CONCLUSIONS: Realist review methodology can be applied in combination with a complex system lens on published literature to produce a knowledge synthesis that informs a prospective change effort in large-system transformation. A collaborative process engaging both research producers and research users contributes to local applications of universal principles and mid-range theories, as well as to a more robust knowledge base for applied research. We conclude with suggestions for the future development of synthesis and evaluation methods.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.063 | 0.198 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.011 | 0.013 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".