Translating Resilience into Healthcare Practice: Multilevel Theories and Perspectives

Resilience in healthcare (RiH) is more relevant than ever. Global health crises, increasing service complexity, resource constraints, shortages of qualified professionals, and rapid technological development all demand continuous adaptation from stakeholders at every level of the healthcare system. Amid these challenges, ensuring high-quality care requires a deeper understanding of how systems, teams, and individuals respond and adapt.

This book explores resilience as a multi-level phenomenon and positions adaptive capacity as the cornerstone of care quality. It expands the perspective of resilience beyond frontline staff to include patients and families, managers, teams, organizations, and policymakers as stakeholders in maintaining and improving healthcare quality. With its findings from the RiH research program (RiH, 2018–2024), a large-scale international study, this book addresses knowledge gaps and real-world challenges. It presents a view of what enables resilient performance (RP) across healthcare systems and settings, from regulatory bodies and policy institutions to hospitals, primary care, nursing homes, and home care services. It provides the reader with examples, frameworks, and lessons learned that support cross-sector learning and practical implementation.

Translating Resilience into Healthcare Practice is an essential read for researchers, educators, and professionals working in healthcare quality and safety, resilience engineering, human factors, medicine, nursing, and social care.

Siri Wiig is Professor and Centre Director at SHARE - Centre for Resilience in Healthcare, at the University of Stavanger (UiS), Norway. Dr Wiig is full Professor of Quality and Safety in Healthcare Systems at UiS; Adjunct Professor at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway; Senior Adviser at Stavanger University Hospital, Norway; and Honorary Professor at Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, Australia and at the University of Wollongong, Australia. Her main research interests are resilient healthcare, risk regulation, leadership and learning in high-risk industry.

Cecilie Haraldseid-Driftland is an Associate Professor at the University of Stavanger, Norway. Her research explores how to strengthen learning and leadership in health services through operationalizing resilience in healthcare. She is interested in collaborative learning practices and has extensive experience in co-designing and evaluating digital tools for healthcare professionals.

Hilda Bø Lyng is an Associate Professor at the University of Stavanger, Norway. Her research concentrates on resilience in healthcare, implementation, innovation and knowledge transfer. Her recent work concerns theory development.

Veslemøy Guise is an Associate Professor at the University of Stavanger, Norway Her main research focus is resilience in healthcare with a focus on patient and stakeholder involvement in adaptations and resilient performance in diverse healthcare contexts. Her research interests also include simulation in healthcare education and practice, especially in support of new ways of working for healthcare professionals.

Lene Schibevaag holds a Master's degree in Societal Safety from the University of Stavanger, Norway She is Center Coordinator for SHARE Center for Resilience in Healthcare at the University of Stavanger. Her research centers on patient safety and stakeholder involvement, particularly in regulatory investigations.