Self-reported changes in the implementation of hospital-based health promotion in Taiwan

To evaluate the pattern of perceived changes in the implementation of the Health Promoting Hospital (HPH) Initiative.

This was a cross-sectional study with a self-administered questionnaire, asking the correspondents what changes they perceived before and after adopting the HPH initiative.

This study was conducted with 55 hospitals committed to the HPH in Taiwan, and 52 completed the questionnaire.

One coordinator in each of the 55 hospitals served as subject.

HPH seeks to improve health gains for its stakeholders by developing structure, cultures, decisions, and process conducive to health promotion.

Perceived changes were measured in the areas of more resource inputs, changing work models, realigned implementation strategies, more programs, higher service volume, and improved quality control. Regarding realigned strategies, emphasizing the impact of healthy public policies, supportive environments, staff participation, individual knowledge and skills, and reorienting health services were measured.

Descriptive analysis was used to examine the pattern of "prevalence of changes."

Changes were more prevalent in the domains of patients and community (both with averaged ranks = 1.8); "realigning strategies" was the area in which more changes were perceived (average rank = 1). Emphases on healthy public policies and reorienting health services were the leading changes (both averaged ranks = 2.4) regarding realigning strategies.

The HPH initiative appeared to be an effective approach to build organizational capacity for health promotion.