Health promotion within an emergency department – learning through a workplace-based development work

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss how workplace health promotion development work can be organized to promote learning about health and conditions for workplace health promotion. The discussion draws on results from a case study examining a workplace developmental work and the conditions that facilitate processes of learning and workplace health promotion within an emergency department in a hospital. The intervention tool was the pedagogic method known as problem-based learning (PBL). All employees including management (N=210) participated in the development work. The intervention was implemented in 22 groups with 6-8 participants, which met 12 times during the development work. Data were collected mainly through individual interviews with 16 employees and 7 managers at three occasions during the development work, and through observations of meetings. The findings indicate that the workplace health promotion development work produced a number of positive outcomes on the individual and group level, as well as on the organizational level. The findings also indicate that several conditions were of more or less importance for workplace health promotion. For instance the attention and support of management were of critical importance for facilitating or constraining processes of learning within workplace health promotion in the emergency department.