Designing quality of care - contributions from parents

Aims and objectives The aim of this article was to explore whether current quality dimensions for health care services are sufficient to capture how parents perceive and contribute to quality of health care. Background New quality improvement initiatives that actively involve patients must be examined with a critical view on established quality dimensions to ensure that these measures support patient involvement. Design This paper used a qualitative and descriptive design. Methods This paper is based on interviews with parents participating in two experience‐based co‐design projects in a Swedish hospital that included qualitative content analysis of data from 12 parent interviews in paediatric care. Results Health care professionals often overemphasize their own significance for value creation in care processes and underappreciate parents’ ability to influence and contribute to better quality. However, quality is not based solely on how professionals accomplish their task, but is co‐created by health care professionals and parents. Consequently, assessment of quality outcomes also must include parents’ ability and context. Conclusions This paper questions current models of quality dimensions in health care, and suggests additional sub‐dimensions, such as family quality and involvement quality. Relevance to clinical practice This paper underscores the importance of involving parents in health care improvements with health care professionals to capture as many dimensions of quality as possible.