Making way for a clinical feedback system in the narrow space between sessions: navigating competing demands in complex healthcare settings

BACKGROUND: Although substantial empirical research supports the clinical value of routine outcome measures/clinical feedback systems (ROM/CFS), translation into routine practice poses several challenges. The present case study investigated how stakeholders, clinicians, patients and clinical managers related to the implementation of the Norse Feedback (NF) in ordinary practice. METHODS: We did an in-depth qualitative case study of the implementation of NF in a public mental-health institution. The settings were two outpatient clinics and two in-patient clinics organized under the same health trust. Data were drawn from three sources: archival sources (n = 16), field notes (n = 23), and 43 in-depth interviews with clinicians (n = 19), clinical managers (n = 5) and patients (n = 12). Ten of the participants were interviewed twice. The data were coded inductively and analyzed using a stringent qualitative methodology. RESULTS: We present our findings under three inter-related domains. First, we describe what followed the clinical feedback implementation. Second, we present the context experienced as being complex and high on work-pressure. Third, we describe the situated rules about the priority between competing tasks. CONCLUSIONS: The preliminary results complement and contextualize understandings of known barriers to implementing ROM/CFS in clinical settings. We apply a socio-material perspective to discuss clinicians’ responses to complexity, implementation, and why some incentivized tasks prevailed over others regardless of therapists’ perceived benefits.