Integrating health promotion with quality improvement in a Swedish hospital

Integration of workplace employee health promotion (HP) and occupational health and safety (OHS) work into organizational quality improvement systems is suggested as a way to strengthen HP and OHS activities in an organization. The aim of this article was to study what consequences integration of HP, OHS and a quality improvement system called kaizen has on the frequency and type of HP and OHS activities. A quasi-experimental study design was used where an integration of the three systems for HP, OHS respectively kaizen, was performed at six intervention units at a Swedish hospital. The remaining six units served as controls. Document analysis of all employees' written improvement suggestions (kaizen notes) during 2013 was conducted. The findings show that the intervention group had more suggestions concerning HP and OHS (n = 114) when compared with the control group (n = 78) and a greater variety of HP and OHS suggestions. In addition, only the intervention group had included HP aspects. In both groups, most kaizen notes with health consideration had a preventive focus rather than rehabilitative. The intervention, i.e. the integration of HP, OHS and kaizen work, had a favourable effect on HP and OHS work when compared with the controls. The results of the study support that this system can work in practice at hospitals.