ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE IN HEALTH CARE ORGANIZATIONS: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Background and Objectives: Organizational culture is important in understanding people s behavior in organizations when managing external demands and internal social changes. There has been an increasing drive to understand and address the organizational culture and try to change it where optimal health performance is hindered. Insufficient attention has been given to the environment of health care and how it can influence individual and organizational results. Before trying to implement any new health care redesign or reform, it is essential to be aware of what characterizes their organizational culture. This study aimed to assess to which extent the organizational culture domain has been mentioned in the health care settings. Method: The search was performed in the Emerald, Ebsco-Host, Google Scholar, PubMed and Science-Direct databases for the time period 2008–2018. The research question that guided this review was posed as: “How it is important to study organizational culture in health care settings”. Studies that did not meet the predetermined criteria were excluded, while those that complied with the inclusion criteria were listed and further reviewed. Twenty-one articles were included in the final analysis of this study. Results: Diverse health care settings were represented in the studies. Twenty-one articles were included in the final analysis of this study. Among the relevant studies, 17 were research articles; 12 were quantitative studies, 2 were qualitative, one mixed method study and 2 were Organizational culture measurement tools design articles. Conclusion: Excellence in health care delivery is linked to positive value systems delivered through a multidisciplinary team approach and the use of strategic involvement, the most important cultural organizational influences for optimum efficiency in the delivery of quality care. The future use of this organizational culture assessment in health care studies that seek to understand health care systems deeply and its influence on clinical performance, will play an essential role in achieving their planned targets.