Healthcare work environments

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511543579.097

Healthcare work environments

from Psychology, health and illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2014

Rudolf H. Moos ,

Jeanne A. Schaefer and

Edited by

John Weinman and

Rudolf H. Moos: Affiliation:
Center for Health Care Evaluation, Veterans Affairs Health Care System and Stanford University
Jeanne A. Schaefer: Affiliation:
Center for Health Care Evaluation, Veterans Affairs Health Care System and Stanford University
Bernice S. Moos: Affiliation:
Center for Health Care Evaluation, Veterans Affairs Health Care System and Stanford University
Susan Ayers: Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Andrew Baum: Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Chris McManus: Affiliation:
St Mary's Hospital Medical School
Stanton Newman: Affiliation:
University College and Middlesex School of Medicine
Kenneth Wallston: Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
John Weinman: Affiliation:
United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's
Robert West: Affiliation:
St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London

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Summary

Introduction

Over the past 80 years, organization theorists have formulated three main conceptual frameworks to examine the relationship between employees and their work environment. An emphasis on employee productivity in the 1920s led to Taylorism and the scientific school of management, which focused on how to maximize task efficiency and production. Scientific management sees the work environment as a set of conditions for ensuring task performance and controlling employees: there is little regard for interpersonal issues or individual differences.

The human relations approach was shaped by concern about employee alienation and the conviction that a narrow focus on productivity could lead to poorer job performance. This approach emphasizes the value of individual and small group relationships and focuses special attention on organizational development and the quality of work life. Most recently, proponents of the socio-technical school have encompassed the technological or task attributes of a job as well as the interpersonal and organizational context in which it is performed.

These three approaches provide a gradually evolving perspective on the work environment and its connections to personal characteristics and work outcomes. We use these ideas here by describing a systems perspective that considers job-related and personal factors, the salient aspects of healthcare work environments and their impact on healthcare staff and how staff morale and performance can affect the quality of patient care and treatment outcome.

Type: Chapter
Information: Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine , pp. 439 - 444

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511543579.097 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2007

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