Health Review | May – August 2024

During the first 2 years of the pandemic, the importance of drug safety in building trust between citizens and institutions for the protection of Public Health was highlighted. At the same time, it became apparent that there are many gaps in the education of healthcare professionals in reporting possible adverse events, making it even more difficult to implement measures protecting Public Health (such as vaccination) due to inadequate communication of basic concepts of Pharmacovigilance (PV) and patient safety to the general public. The above, combined with the chronic deficiencies in infrastructure and inadequate or even non-existent procedures, had significant implications both for the protection of Public Health and for the trust of citizens in the Healthcare system, the competent bodies and ultimately the institutions themselves. In Greece, there is minimal education in Pharmacovigilance and its basic concepts, even in schools such as medicine, nursing and pharmacy. In recent years, some efforts have started at the postgraduate level, but overall, the weight given to this issue is quite inadequate. However, if we why we need Pharmacovigilance and think about how it could directly and indirectly improve the protection of Public Health, then it will be clear why it needs to be introduced in the education of future health professionals and become something like their second nature and way of thinking.

In nursing, a profession facing constant challenges such as increasing pressure, complexity of healthcare services, and the need for increased efficiency, leadership practices are becoming crucial to staff retention and delivery of quality nursing care. This study aimed to examine the concept of nursing leadership and to highlight its significance to job satisfaction and the quality of the provided care in times of healthcare crises. Extensive literature search has been conducted through MEDLINE, Scopus, and EBSCO. "Nursing leadership", "nurses", "quality of care", "job satisfaction" and "pandemic" were used as key words, along with the Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT. Inclusion criteria involved papers written in English, published between 2020 and 2023 in order to investigate the healthcare crisis that the CoViD-19 pandemic introduced in 2020, and focusing exclusively on leadership and the nursing profession. The 6-stage framework proposed by Arksey and O’Malley was implemented. Results indicated that effective nursing leadership, especially during healthcare crises, can contribute to improved levels of nurses' job satisfaction, their long-term retention and enhancement of the quality of nursing care provided. Leaders’ preparedness to confront contemporary challenges is essential for supporting and motivating nursing staff. The findings clearly indicate that through consecutive research, development, and adjustment of inspiring leadership practices, it can be ensured that nurses will receive the support and guidance they need for increasing job satisfaction levels and enhancing quality care practices.

Healthcare organizations are an important part of social living since their existence protects the two most basic rights of humans, which are health and life. Thus, healthcare organizations should be organized and managed as High Reliability Organizations, the basic characteristic of which is the successful handling of difficult conditions, the avoidance of mistakes, and the restraint of risks and failures. The condition of high reliability is achievable through leadership characterized by the philosophy of mindfulness. The application of mindfulness in organizational management creates leaders who are objective, efficient, and decisive. At the same time, the employees enjoy a high level of well-being, without stress, unnecessary anxiety, and burn-out. Therefore, healthcare organizations need to follow mindful leadership in order to create mindful personnel, which would experience a condition of organizational well-being for the benefit not only of the healthcare organization but primarily of patients and their familiar and social environment. The purpose of this paper is to analyze high reliability concepts and describe the importance of these concepts to hospitals, while implementing mindful leadership.

Knowledge of the experience of health service users is a strategic operational success factor, due to the ability of patients to capture a unique (individual) picture of the hospital's operation, information whose utilization contributes to the improvement of the organization. The purpose of the current study was to measure perceived quality through the experiences of the patients of Rhodes General Hospital. 420 questionnaires were collected with convenience/ random sampling (July 2022-February 2023). A weighted patient satisfaction questionnaire was used. A regularity and reliability check (Cronbach's alpha) were performed. To test the statistical hypotheses, the non-parametric Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis test, one-way ANOVA with post hoc analysis and regression analysis were performed. IBM SPSS v.25 statistical package was utilized. The level of statistical significance was set at 0.05. The sample consists of 285 women (68%) and 135 men (32%). The average age was 48.8 years (± 21.71). Almost half of the sample of patients had scheduled admission. Overall satisfaction is quite high (4.77± 0.34). Respondents express their satisfaction with the parameters of reception and accommodation (4.57±0.55), medical follow-up (4.85± 0.35), nursing care (4.91 ±0.28) and general service (4.77 ±0.46). Gender appears to be statistically significantly related to perceived satisfaction with the care environment, diligence of serving, and behavior of catering staff. Age and type of admission seem to be statistically significantly related to perceived patient satisfaction with physicians' behavior, quality of nursing care, and behavior toward attendants. Older patients are more satisfied with the instructions they receive on discharge. These findings illustrate that the measurement of patient satisfaction is a legitimate indicator for improving the services and strategic goals of healthcare organisations, which ensure the patient-centered nature of care. The improvement strategies of facilities/reception/environment, as well as upgrading the communication skills of medical, nursing, and other staff, will help to ensure the best possible quality rates at the investigated hospital.