Within the healthcare sector in Sweden, efforts are made to strengthen the position of patients and practitioners and the opportunities to co-create planned change. Planned change refers to planned organizational change and change whose initiative is initiated outside the unit where change is planned. The likelihood of successful change becoming sustainable, meeting the needs of those affected, and adapting to the unique context where change is intended to occur increases when patients, practitioners, and other relevant stakeholders see the need and value of planned change and have the opportunity to influence. Despite this, first-line managers and practitioners are often tasked with converting planned changes into a way of working in practice without the feeling that they can influence the implementation and without sufficient prerequisites. Co-creation is one way for patients, practitioners, and managers to influence planned change.

Further, there are existing approaches for how patients, practitioners, and first-line managers can be involved in the development of healthcare, and there are a growing number of studies where change is co-created. Despite this, it is perceived as challenging to influence planned change in healthcare. To develop a model that is used, perceived as valuable, and supports the co-creation of planned change in healthcare, it is important to understand the needs and conditions of the intended users.

The purpose of this study is to investigate different stakeholders' perceptions of a healthcare organization's conditions and needs for making planned change happen through co-creation.

The research approach follows the principles of insider action research, in which the insider action researcher is an active agent who makes development and change happen while co-creating knowledge simultaneously. Action research is a scientific approach and consists of a repeating cyclical process comprising the steps, plan, act, and evaluate. The project has a reference group composed of representatives of the organization and patient representatives. The reference group participates in the project by guiding and influencing the research process to facilitate the implementation of the project and ensure its relevance and value from the different stakeholders’ perspectives, which is an important quality aspect in action research where knowledge is co-created.

This paper presents initial findings from ten semi-structured individual interviews with patient representatives and representatives from the healthcare organisation, all with experience of co-creating planned change in healthcare. The interviews are audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. An inductive approach to thematic analysis is used to stay as close as possible to the respondents' experience and proceed from the data collected without predefined themes.

The study is expected to result in a deeper understanding of the conditions in a healthcare organisation to make planned change happen through co-creation. This understanding can support patients, practitioners, and first-line managers convert planned change into a way of working in healthcare practice through co-creation. The result will also be used to develop a useful, valuable, and supportive model for how planned change can be co-created in healthcare practice.

Keywords: Work-integrated learning (WIL), planned change, co-creation, healthcare.