Bringing the well being and patient safety research agenda together: Why healthy HPs equal safe patients

Health care is changing. Ageing populations, new therapeutic possibilities and rising expectations have made the provision of health care much more complex than in the past. The changing healthcare landscape means a greater burden for the healthcare professionals (HPs) who are expected to deliver the same quality of care with decreasing resources, while patient expectations of care remain stable or increase. Many countries in Europe are responding to this challenge by introducing new ways of delivering healthcare. However, the constant evolution of healthcare models is not resulting in better HPs, as indicated by the increasing phenomenon of burnout among health professionals (Leiter and Harvie, 1996; Rosenberg and Pace, 2006), or in safer care, as indicated by the increasing number of medical errors (Kondro, 2010). Today, there is enough evidence to suggest that expecting health professionals to deliver safe, efficient and patient-centered care, while they are getting more and more burnt-out, is not only ineffective but also costly and dangerous. In order for healthcare systems to be truly patient-centered, safe, and efficient, they need primarily to protect the health and well-being of their workers. Both healthcare professionals and patients are reinforced to view hospitals via a pathogenic lens. However, a saultogenic approach is needed. Interventions need to be bottom-up and system focused. Action research (AR) represents an appropriate methodology to link healthcare/patient input to improving hospital safety.