Evaluating Healthcare Governance Policies: A Scoping Review Protocol
Abstract Background: Governance policies provide structures and processes through which healthcare systems are managed. Existing literature defines strategies to evaluate operational (e.g. program) and clinical (e.g., patient-provider) healthcare interventions; the equivalent strategies to evaluate governance policies are less well developed. The aim of the proposed scoping review is to examine the extent, nature and range of approaches used to evaluate healthcare governance policies.Methods: Informed by the Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines and the Arksey and O’Malley framework, the proposed study will conduct a keyword search of both health and social sciences databases, including Ageline (EBSCOhost 1978-2020), CINAHL with Full Text (EBSCOhost 1981-2020), EconLIT (EBSCOhost 1886-2020), Medline (Ovid 1946-2020), Global Health (Ovid 1973-2020) and Scopus (1970-2020). The grey literature – Public Documents (desLibris), Theses & Dissertations (ProQuest) and Google Advanced – will also be searched to ensure comprehensive identification of studies. Any evaluation of healthcare governance policies published in English will be included. Findings will be presented using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses: Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRIMSA-ScR). Our cross-disciplinary team will critically assess the identified literature. Discussion: Findings from the proposed scoping review will provide insight into the ways in which healthcare governance policies have been evaluated and offer future research directions. Based on initial literature scans and consultations with policy workers, we expect to demonstrate the need for more robust (i.e., deliberate, methodical) approaches to evaluate healthcare governance policies, which in turn requires meaningful partnerships to enrich the transactional space between research and policy.