Exploring healthcare professionals’ workplace wellbeing: A case study of a regional hospital in Australia

Sustainable healthcare systems require a healthy workforce to deliver safe, patient-centred, high-quality care (Hollnagel & Braithwaite 2019a). As the relationship between care seeker and caregiver is symbiotic, there has been a call for action to implement evidence-based practices that prioritise healthcare workforce wellbeing (Rosen et al. 2018). However, most conventional healthcare literature focuses on burnout syndrome (Willard-Grace et al. 2019; Sturman et al. 2017) and suggests reactive strategies focused on changing individual behaviours. This limited perspective tends to neglect the development of a holistic organisational strategy to improve workplace wellbeing. To fill this gap, the present study explores key barriers and enablers surrounding the creation and sustenance of resource caravan passageways. This study used a qualitative research method with a longitudinal design and collected primary and secondary data based on an embedded single case study organisation. The unit of analysis included 51 healthcare professionals employed in three broad occupational categories: medical practitioners, nurses, and allied health professionals. Interviews provided insights at three hierarchical levels: frontline healthcare professionals, supervisors, and senior managers.