Background

The increasing shortage of skilled staff, rising workloads and more complex tasks are presenting hospitals with major challenges. At the same time, motivated and qualified employees are the central prerequisite for high-quality care. Innovative HR strategies that take into account labor market conditions and "New Work" concepts are needed to attract and retain skilled staff in the long term.

With the project "Working 5.0 - Harmonization of processes and working hours", the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) is breaking new ground: the aim is to make working hours in nursing more flexible, promote interprofessional collaboration and thus strengthen employer attractiveness, secure skilled workers and employee loyalty. Two types of intervention are being implemented for this purpose:

1. Making working hours and organizational forms more flexible - a voluntary offer for nursing staff.

2. Process optimization between professional groups - mandatory for nursing staff, medical assistants and doctors.

The project, funded by Techniker Krankenkasse as part of the Care Strengthening Act, is being scientifically supported by the Hamburg Center for Health Economics (HCHE) and the University of Siegen. For its innovative approach, the UKE was awarded the German Demography Prize 2024
in the "Future of Work" category for its innovative approach .

Objective

The research project comprises the scientific evaluation of the project "Working 5.0 - Harmonization of processes and working hours" and examines its degree of target achievement, success factors and transferability to other hospitals. The central questions of the research project deal with the extent to which the interventions introduced to make working hours more flexible and to optimize processes between the professional groups have brought about noticeable improvements over time in relevant target indicators such as job satisfaction or work-life balance and to what extent these effects are related to the fidelity of implementation and intensity of use of the interventions. The results form the basis for evidence-based recommendations for the sustainable implementation of innovative working models in everyday clinical practice.

Research design/procedure

The evaluation follows the design of a multicenter, prospective cluster-controlled intervention study in an open cohort stepped wedge design over a period of three years. The interventions of the "Working 5.0" project will be rolled out in stages on all wards of the UKE. A multi-perspective, multi-dimensional evaluation approach is being pursued, which makes it possible to include the perspectives of all professional groups participating in the interventions (nursing staff, medical staff, ward managers/administration) in the evaluation of the degree of target achievement and the success of the project. For the evaluation, primary data is collected from employees by means of surveys. Secondary data from the UKE personnel statistics and data on the use of the interventions (utilization statistics) are also used.