Reorientation of health services: enablers and barriers faced by organisations when increasing health promotion capacity

Issue addressed Primary healthcare settings are important providers of health promotion approaches. However, organisational challenges can affect their capacity to deliver these approaches. This review identified the common enablers and barriers health organisations faced and it aimed to explore the experiences health organisations, in particular Aboriginal organisations, had when increasing their health promotion capacity. Methods A systematic search of peer-reviewed literature was conducted. Articles published between 1990-2014 that focused on a health care-settings approach and discussed factors that facilitated or hindered an organisation's ability to increase health promotion capacity were included. Results Twenty-five articles met the inclusion criteria. Qualitative (n=18) and quantitative (n=7) study designs were included. Only one article described the experiences of an Aboriginal health organisation. Enablers included: management support, skilled staff, provision of external support to the organisation, committed staffing and financial resources, leadership and the availability of external partners to work with. Barriers included: lack of management support, lack of dedicated health promotion staff, staff lacking skills or confidence, competing priorities and a lack of time and resources allocated to health promotion activities. Conclusions While the literature highlighted the importance of health promotion work, barriers can limit the delivery of health promotion approaches within primary healthcare organisations. A gap in the literature exists about how Aboriginal health organisations face these challenges. So what? Primary healthcare organisations wanting to increase their health promotion capacity can pre-empt the common barriers and strengthen identified enablers through the shared learnings outlined in this review.