Organizational resilience in emergency healthcare
Lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic in five Danish hospitals
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4595616 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Iben Duvald (Aarhus University), Børge Obel (0000-0003-1283-5489, Aarhus University), Cecilie Lohse, Hans Kirkegaard (0000-0003-4853-8152, Aarhus University Hospital), Richard M Burton (0000-0002-5524-7559, Duke University) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 366 |
| Pages | 117728 |
| Publication date | 2025-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Science & Medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0277-9536 • E-ISSN: 1873-5347 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.117728 |
| PMID | 39855026 |
| OpenAlex | W4406602523 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 29 |
The COVID-19 pandemic created significant challenges for healthcare professionals and the provision of hospital care, leading to immense stress and rapidly changing conditions. Hospitals had to constantly adapt their organizational structures and strategies to manage the crisis. This study examines the organizational responses of Danish emergency hospitals during the first COVID-19 surge, focusing on resilience in anticipation, coping, and learning. We conducted a study involving interviews with healthcare professionals and managers from the five emergency hospitals in the Central Denmark Region. The interview guides were based on multi-contingency theory for organizational design, with open-ended discussions to compare key organizational components across hospitals. Topics covered included hospital configuration, task design, resources, information systems, leadership, and coordination during the first surge. Interviews were cross-validated with administrative documents. Results showed that hospitals responded differently to national and regional directives, continuously adjusting their governance structures and strategies to meet the demands for new procedures and information sharing. The ability to introduce, learn from, and adapt organizational changes as the pandemic unfolded was crucial to building resilience. This study provides insights into organizational resilience in healthcare and highlights practical lessons for managing future crises
Anticipation (artificial intelligence · Business · Contingency · Contingency plan · Coping (psychology · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Danish · Health care · Management · Pandemic · Political science · Public relations · Resilience (materials science · Computer Science · Disaster Response and Management · Medicine · Nursing · Occupational Health and Safety Research · Psychology · Supply Chain Resilience and Risk Management
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Organizational resilience
Resilient cities
A Restructured Hospital Into a One-Building Organization for Covid-19 Patients
What is “hospital resilience”? A scoping review on conceptualization, operationalization, and evaluation
Building resilient hospitals in the Eastern Mediterranean Region
Ethnography
Interviews – Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing
Framing the pandemic
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |