The study design will be informed by social science theory and research methods and adopt a qualitative, case study design [12]. Conceptually, the research will be informed by the theoretical frameworks of the social sciences that explore health services, and their integration, as 'systems' [13], MSC in health systems [7, 9] and care and management in relation to health emergencies [14, 15]. The study will be qualitative in order to give special attention to the narratives and the experience of the actors who have been directly involved in responding to the pandemic, at multiple levels of Colombia's health system. The evidence developed will be drawn from stakeholder scoping discussions or interviews, analysis of secondary data sources, and in-depth qualitative case studies of how three Colombian cities, including their departmental relationships, are responding to COVID-19. A qualitative approach was chosen due to, first, the exploratory or scoping nature of this study (i.e. the key priorities and research themes facing the health system in response to COVID-19 will be uncovered as data is collected) and, second, because of the need to gain the views and experiences of a range of stakeholders that can be uncovered most effectively through open-ended conversation or dialogue [16].
The study design involves two main phases and will establish mechanisms for providing timely, formative feedback to health system stakeholders (Fig. 1).
Phase 1: Scoping discussions or interviews
The aim of this rapid, initial phase is to acquire and share immediate challenges and opportunities for improvement in response to COVID-19 that can be shared in a timely way with health service leaders to inform immediate health service planning. This phase will focus on national level actors in Colombia, and the response of the health system to the pandemic in Bogotá, Colombia´s capital city. Bogotá, Colombia's largest city with a population of 7.4 million, was chosen because it hosts all of the national governmental bodies that design the guidelines to respond to COVID-19 including the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and the National Institute of Health. Bogotá also centralizes many of the universities and national scientific associations and committees that are assessing the national response to the emergency. In addition, Bogotá was chosen given that it is the city that concentrates the highest number of patients positive for COVID-19 in the country (to 1 July 2020, Bogotá had 30,017 or 31% of the 97,846 cases across the country), this has been the trend since the emergency was declared in the country early in March 2020.[17] Up to thirty scoping discussions will be conducted virtually in relation to Bogota either by telephone or using online applications (e.g. Microsoft Teams). The stakeholders will be selected in order to sample a range of planning, provider and intermediary organizations engaged in responding to COVID-19.
Phase 2: Qualitative case studies of health systems in Colombia
Using the research priorities and themes identified in phase 1 of the study, a deeper set of qualitative case studies of three health systems' responses to COVID-19 in Colombia will be undertaken. This will cover the metropolitan area of Bogotá, developing the interview data acquired in phase 1, and two other local health systems within Colombia in order to compare and contrast health service needs and responses across different geographical territories of the country.
Ongoing: identifying mechanisms for providing timely and formative feedback
The research will include, from the outset, investigation of the optimal mechanisms for the communication of emerging findings from the research study to maximise their impact on policy and practice in relation to COVID-19, as achieving impact is recognised as the driving purpose of the study. During the initial scoping discussions with stakeholders, their preferences for sharing feedback from the study (both content and approach) will be ascertained and collated. Thus, we will seek to share findings in a timely way, and as widely as possible with stakeholders and planners of local health systems, and nationally, in order to maximize their potential impact. This consultative approach will draw on and develop approaches used in previous research [18, 19] and principles of knowledge mobilization concerning the tailoring of findings to stakeholder audiences. [20].
Identifying relevant stakeholders
The stakeholders in phase one of the study will be limited to national level interviewees and those relating to Bogotá's health system in order to provide coherence across the interviews (i.e. all participants will be referring to a common health system across a metropolitan area) and to support the acquisition of contacts to interview across the metropolitan area (i.e. convenience and snowball sampling). Organizations, and potential interviewees within them, will be selected on the basis of those who have first-hand awareness of the situation facing the health system, nationally and in the three localities. This includes relevant actors in terms of health service providers, as well as key entities in the design of guidelines and planning of actions in public health. Once this network is identified, we will prioritize the most relevant organizations in responding to COVID-19 through stakeholder analysis. In these selected cases, we will carry out interviews with key actors within each organization who can give us a general and comprehensive vision of the way in which, from their specific role, they have responded to the emergency (for example, representatives of the local health secretary, hospital / clinic managers, leaders of scientific committees, representatives of the risk management unit).
We understand that access to these spaces in current circumstances represents a challenge and, for this reason, during the first phase of our project we will be in contact with key bodies nationally and locally that have links to the relevant communities of practice (e.g. Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Ministry of Health and Social Protection, and the National Institute of Health). The aim is to work closely with these entities and seek their support in negotiating access issues by providing official letters supporting the project, making suggestions of key organizations to be contacted, and providing contact details of individuals in the organizations. Potential interviewees will be also be identified through informal discussion with colleagues in the School of Management, and other faculties including Government and Medicine, that have links to the relevant communities of practice within the health services and local government, including hospitals linked to the medical school.
Study context and case selection
While recent interest in the theory and practice of MSC has grown [7, 8, 9, 21, 22, 23], there is a lack of research on the navigation of MSC within health systems in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). Little is known about the professional and organizational processes shaping approaches to, and implementation of, change in LMIC in Latin America. Studying coordinated change in the LMIC context is important because such countries are likely to face particular resource pressures and technical constraints, e.g. on public health knowledge [5]. Colombia is an upper middle income country, and OECD member, with a Gross National Income (GNI) per capita of $6,931 [24]. Colombia has a social health insurance model, funded through general taxation and payroll deductible contributions [25]. In 1992, the passing of Law 100 introduced compulsory health insurance for formal sector workers (and their families), while those working in the informal sector or unemployed would be covered by the lower cost ´Subsidised Insurance Scheme´. Patients choose an insurer to purchase services from public or private providers on behalf of their patients. Providers compete to deliver services to insurers who pay for services (so-called ´managed competition´) [25].
Healthcare in Colombia is organized into networks of providers (Law 100/1993; Law 1122/2007), mainly private and some publicly owned, with primary care the entry point and coordinator of patient care. The territorial entities (departments, districts and municipalities) are responsible for public health activities, collective health programs and health promotion. In relation to the population using the publicly subsidized regime, and the uninsured (4% of the population), the territorial entities contract services from publicly owned healthcare providers (these are social state enterprises). By 2012, the subsidised scheme covered 48.1% of the population [26]. Since 2015, both schemes have provided access to an equal range of services; however, judiciary intervention needed to address barriers to access to services is high [25]. Barriers to access is a particular problem with the subsidised insurance system, as 70% of the total claims made come from this system [27]. The subsidised insurance scheme to ensure it covers patients on lower incomes or unemployed, meaning that it is directed toward the health and welfare of poorer groups in Colombian society.
The three in-depth case studies will be purposively sampled using a range of criteria, including COVID-19 prevalence data, urbanity, health system design (e.g. mix of public and private providers), and technical capacity in public health. Data collection will involve remote and face-to-face interviews, documentary evidence, and non-participant observations where possible (face-to-face aspect dependent on wider travel restrictions across Colombia at the time of phase two of the research). The case studies will focus on the planning and operational delivery of the response to COVID-19 in three major cities (Bogota, and two others chosen using the selection criteria above), and their governance relationships with the wider departments (states) in which they are situated and the national health system.
Data collection
The aim of collecting qualitative data is to be build up a rich picture, or thick description [28], of the roles, responsibilities and relationships of different organizations making up the national and local health systems and, in particular, how the quality of relationships, including capacity constraints or deficits and innovative forms of integration to address capacity issues, are influencing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Interviews (up to 30 per case study and up to 90 in total) will be conducted with stakeholders associated with change at different levels, including: leaders of change planning at the national and local level, both within the health system and within municipal authorities; senior executives, operational managers, and heads of relevant clinical departments, e.g. intensive care units, within provider organisations such as hospitals; other key stakeholders including insurance providers, regulatory authorities, professional associations, and network-based organizations; and scientific or 'expert' advisers including official advisory groups.
Key themes explored in relation to each case study will include: how different professions understand and participate in change processes; organizational processes including orientations toward collaboration with other organizations both within and beyond the health service in responding to COVID-19; factors influencing the capacity of healthcare organizations to respond to the pandemic, including availability of human resources, clinical space, and equipment; inter-organizational relationships within the health system and with municipal organizations; their immediate priorities for improving the response to COVID-19 within their own organization and across the health system; and how the regulation and culture of the health system locally and nationally shapes the approach to, and implementation, of MSC in relation to COVID-19. The interviews will also explore the perceived resources that each health system has, including their technical capacity to respond to COVID-19, as well as their public health capacity to implement changes suggested by the study.
All study participants will be given an information sheet and provide informed consent. All discussions will be audio-recorded and informed by a topic guide. The topic guide for the interviews is provided (Supplementary File 1). The interviews will be transcribed in full by a professional transcription company. The researchers employed on the study will have experience undertaking qualitative research in Colombia and they will be bilingual in Spanish and English to facilitate the production of reports and papers in both languages.
The interview data will be supplemented with analysis of documents (e.g. legal, financial and operational planning documents) at local and national level and non-participant observations where feasible (e.g. attending planning meetings) relating to the responses to COVID-19 will be conducted.
Data analysis
For both phases 1 and 2, the interview transcripts, and other data such as notes of observations, will be analyzed thematically using a combination of inductive and deductive coding [29]. Coding will be informed by the empirical data as it relates to the study objectives (inductive analysis) as well as themes in existing research on MSC and decision-making in crisis (deductive). Thematic analysis of data will involve collective and iterative coding by the research team: similar codes will be grouped together into themes, which will be prioritized in relation to addressing the driving research objectives and the potential contribution to existing understanding of the topic. The prioritized themes will be developed further through recursive coding of the transcripts. Any differences in interpretation of the coded data, and resulting themes, will be discussed among the research team and resolved through debate.
Study activities by objective
By virtue of the need to deliver timely findings that can inform policy and practice, this study will be completed intensively over an eight-month period, under the leadership of the principal investigator and five full-time research assistants. The key activities, outputs, and time allocation for their completion by study objective are summarised in Table 1.
Table 1
Summary of activities and products by objective
Objective | Activities | Products | Time |
Ob1. To characterize, from the experiences of key actors of the health system at the national and local level, the strategies and organisational resources (including human resources and infrastructure) used to respond to the COVID-19 by each of the local health systems chosen for the study. | Finalise case study selection. The cases will include Bogotá and two other cities/ departments with the highest prevalence of cases when initiating the study. | Summary of selected case study sites, including initial maps of health system roles, responsibilities & relationships, and timelines of responses. | Month 1 |
Conduct phase 1 stakeholder interviews (up to 30) at national level and in Bogotá. Collect documentary evidence on response to COVID-19 | Qualitative dataset | Month 1–2 |
Analysis of data collected from phase 1 of study data collection. | Paper submitted for peer-review publication and short summary shared of findings shared with health system stakeholders with the aim of informing decision-making. | Month 3–5 |
Ob2. To identify critical coordination issues or "bottlenecks" that are constraining the capacity of the selected local health systems to respond to the pandemic as well as factors that facilitate the response. | Data collection for phase 2, covering all three case studies (up to 60 additional interviews and 90 in total). Collection of documentary evidence from all sites. | Qualitative dataset | Months 5–6 |
Data analysis will focus on factors that constrain effective coordination in response to COVID-19. Analysis of information. This activity will take place from month 2. During the first two months there will be a first analysis that we hope to socialize with the stakeholders involved. This first report, although exploratory, hopes to provide an input for actions in the short term. | See objective 3 products. | Months 7–8 |
Ob3. To analyse local examples of promising innovations and practices of coordination between actors that promote responsiveness to COVID-19 and have potential for scaling up more widely across health systems and/or integrated into healthcare guidelines or protocols. | Data collection for phase 2, covering all three case studies (up to 60 additional interviews and 90 in total). Collection of documentary evidence from all sites. | Qualitive dataset | Months 5–6 |
Data analysis will focus on factors that enable effective coordination and promising innovations for 'scale up' in response to COVID-19. | Paper submitted for peer-review publication drawing on findings from phase 2 of the study (objectives 1–3). Accessible summary of findings will be shared with health system stakeholders with the aim of informing decision-making. | Months 7–8 |
Ob4. To establish mechanisms for sharing lessons and experiences of the crisis in a timely fashion with health system leaders and other key stakeholders to inform health service planning in relation to COVID-19 and future pandemics of national and international origin. | As part of the conduct and analysis of interviews, appropriate mechanisms sharing formative findings from the study will be identified. | Establishment of university-health system network to share study findings. Communication plan for sharing findings, including content, format, and frequency of communication. Products aimed at stakeholders for sharing findings, including final report and lay summary, social media use, newsletters, project website, interactive guidance, webinars and other events. | Ongoing throughout study (months 1–8) |