Industry 4.0 solutions have penetrated the healthcare sector, thus creating challenges that healthcare entities should meet. For this, a proper relationship between human resource management (HRM) within healthcare entities and Healthcare 4.0 is needed. In addition, organizations mainly focus on HRM practices, yet organizational issues are overlooked. In this context, the aim of the article was to analyze and evaluate the involvement and roles of key HRM actors, such as line managers and human resource (HR) specialists (HR departments) within strategic healthcare entities, namely hospitals. It was also important to identify the potential of hospitals to meet the requirements of Healthcare 4.0. A study was performed on a group of 285 Polish hospitals. Five respondents were recruited from each hospital. The total population amounted to 1425 interviewees. Due to the complexity of the research, it was outsourced. The results of the analysis identified that hospitals largely engage line managers in medical personnel management. However, a lack of managerial competence may become a major barrier in coping with challenges created by Healthcare 4.0. Organizational solutions do not support the strategic role of HR specialists; their anchoring in the organizational structures limits the possibility to support the changes required for the transformation towards Healthcare 4.0.

Background: Polish healthcare providers already struggle with a deficiency concerning human resources, especially with regard to doctors and nurses. Because of this, effective HRM interventions should be taken in order to attract and retain medical personnel. Employer branding is one such intervention because it not only results in improving the organization's reputation as an employer but also improving HRM practices. However, to create an effective employer branding strategy, a contextual approach should be taken. Because of this, the aim of the study is to assess the importance of various factors influencing medical personnel’s perception of a hospital’s attractiveness as an employer. Methods: The study was performed among 285 hospitals in Poland assuming a confidence level of 0.95. In each hospital, five respondents took part in the survey. The first cohort of respondents named ‘Directors’ consisted of hospital directors or employees authorized by them, mostly HR specialists. The other four groups were: ‘Hybrid Doctors Managers’ (individuals who had the roles of both doctor and manager); ‘Hybrid Nurses Managers’ (having the roles of both manager and nurse); ‘Physicians’; ‘Nurses’. Due to the ordinal nature of the data, the chi-square test of independence was used and the V-Cramer coefficient was determined. To indicate significant discrepancies between the responses of the respondents’ cohorts, the Kruskal–Wallis rank test was conducted. Results and discussion: Various groups of respondents perceive hospital attractiveness as an employer differently. While the opinions of medical personnel are more or less homogeneous, the cohort of employees responsible for HRM are less consistent with regard to their perception of hospital attractiveness. Additionally, ‘Directors’ highlight tangible factors determining hospital desirability. Moreover, their hierarchy of the top five factors influencing EB clearly exposes their quantitative orientation towards hospital performance management. Medical personnel hierarchies of the determinants expose qualitative orientation. Excluding country-dependent factors, such as regularity of remuneration payment, the professionals value such determinants as a nice work atmosphere, cooperation with colleagues (specialists), good working conditions and, most importantly, employment stability. The last determinant results from generational and gender tendencies (feminization), and yet it stands in contradiction with a tendency of flexible employment implemented in most developed countries due to a lack of medical personnel. Conclusions: The results showed the importance of adapting employer branding strategies to the medical professional groups (doctors and nurses). This is because their perception of employers’ attractiveness differ. In addition, elements of the profession genotypes play an important role in how the physicians and nurses value various factors creating the employers’ attractiveness. The research also revealed the fact that top managers or HR specialists can wrongly identify the hospitals attractiveness since they are more quantitatively than qualitatively oriented. For this reason, they may implement inefficient EB strategies.

Objectives: This review aimed to explore the prevalence of burnout among health care professionals working in the operating room (OR) and its impact on patient safety and care quality. Methods: A focused narrative review was conducted, utilizing PubMed, CINAHL, Semantic Scholar, WorldCat, Cochrane Library, and clinical trials registries. Full-text primary literature published in English between 2018 and 2024 was included. Studies specifically addressing burnout in the OR and its effects on patient safety and care quality were selected. Data extraction included prevalence rates, stress factors, and impacts on patient outcomes. Results: Burnout was found to be highly prevalent among OR health care professionals, particularly affecting surgeons, anesthesiologists, and OR nurses. Reported prevalence rates ranged from 10% to 83%, with the highest levels occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic. Burnout was linked to critical aspects of health care quality and safety, primarily through communication breakdowns and operational inefficiencies. Impaired communication contributed to safety incidents, while disruptions in OR scheduling and increased turnover times further exacerbated workflow challenges. Although studies directly connecting burnout to patient safety events were limited, burnout was consistently associated with poor decision-making, weakened teamwork, and higher staff turnover—factors that collectively undermine patient outcomes. Conclusions: Burnout among OR health care professionals poses a significant threat to both staff well-being and patient safety, a challenge that was further intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing burnout requires a multifaceted approach, including enhanced training, workload optimization, and robust support systems. Implementing comprehensive, context-specific interventions can improve staff resilience and patient safety.

Over the past decade, theoretical and empirical research on the various aspects of human resources (HR) within the healthcare (HC) sector has grown extensively due to its′ strategic importance in the sector. There is a visible tendency among researchers to pursue an effective human resource management (HRM) strategies, methods, and tools. Countries implement policies which should increase the amount and competences of employees within healthcare. Providers of HC services (i.e. hospitals) tend to enforce modern HRM solutions adapted from business organisations to attract, retain and develop HR. However, these seem not be as effective as they could (Hyde et al., 2013). Because of this, authors approached a researched reality from the point of view of a contextual paradigm, assuming that HRM solutions to be effective should match the reality of HC providers (Pocztowski, 2008). The aim of the research was to detect determinants which might influence the management of medical personnel in hospitals and identify the possible strength of these determinants so a more adjusted organisational and human resource management strategy could be elaborated. The list of possible determinants of hospital operations as the result of meta-analysis was elaborated. The list created the basis for interviews conducted among stakeholders and experts. Respondents were asked to appraise the factors with the usage of numerical scale considering their influence on medical personnel management in hospitals (physicians, nurses and others). In total, there were 28 interviews completed. The general conclusion which can be drawn from the analysis of these data is that hospitals should reorient their HRM practices in such the way that not only the quantitative but also the qualitative aspect of performance would be properly handled. This paper draws from HRM theory (contextual approach), stakeholder theory, and healthcare management theory, adding new insight to each in the context of the HC sector. Identification of most important factors which influence hospitals could allow the providers to elaborate HRM strategy adjusted to external circumstances.

Healthcare sector is considered as the knowledge-based sector and because of this innovation and creativity should be regarded as prerequisite for the survival and growth of the organizations which perform their activities within the sector. In this context development of pro-innovative culture within hospitals becomes crucial. In search for tools allowing to create the culture employees appraisal becomes an interesting tool to be further investigated. Due to the fact the main aim of the paper is to investigate the relationships between the employee appraisal system and innovation in the context of the organizational culture in the hospitals. Study was carried in eight public hospitals located in two voivodships in Poland. Not only qualitative but also quantitative data was analyzed in order to identify usefulness of employees appraisal as the tool of pro-innovative culture creation.