Palacký University Olomouc is a partner in the international research and education project The Patient Voice in Healthcare Polyphony (PATVOICE), supported by the Aurora Alliance. The project brings together six European universities and focuses on how healthcare organisations listen to patients, capture their experiences, and take them into account when making decisions about care. At Palacký University, the partnership is coordinated by Slavka Silberg from the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Arts. Other members of the department will also be involved in the project.
Being heard, being seen, and being part of the discussion
The patient voice is an important but still vulnerable part of healthcare. It is often reduced to consent to treatment or standardised indicators that may not fully capture the needs and experiences of individual patients. PATVOICE will therefore explore not only whether patients are able to express their views, but also whether their input is recognised and has a genuine impact on the care they receive.
The project views healthcare organisations as environments in which different voices meet and interact – those of healthcare professionals, management, patients, and their families. The research will focus on three interconnected areas: whether patients are heard, how their experiences are reflected in data and organisational practices, and how they become part of a shared discussion. The research will also examine how organisational structures and social and cultural contexts affect patients’ opportunities to express their views and participate in decisions about their care.
PATVOICE will combine organisational analysis, field research, and AI-assisted text data analysis. Among other things, the team will compare standardised tools for assessing patient outcomes and experiences with patients’ own accounts. The aim is to better understand what different ways of capturing patient experiences can reveal and what they may leave out.
Six universities and interdisciplinary collaboration
The project is coordinated by Justine Arnoud from Université Paris-Est Créteil in France. The partner team includes Massimo Aria from the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, Carina Pittens from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Esben Rahbek Gjerdrum Pedersen from Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, Elisabet Llauradó Ribé from Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Spain, and Slavka Silberg from Palacký University Olomouc. The consortium thus brings together expertise in healthcare management, participatory research, statistics, data analysis, and organisational psychology.
The Olomouc team will focus on the organisational and psychosocial conditions that either enable patients to actively participate in their care or make such participation more difficult. Attention will also be paid to attitudes towards health, stigma, and help-seeking, all of which may affect patients’ willingness to express their needs and take part in decision-making.
Connecting research and education
The project is planned for two years and will include joint European seminars, methodological workshops, and student involvement in data collection, analysis, and interpretation. It will support the development of a European community of researchers, students, patients, and healthcare professionals working together to explore ways of promoting meaningful patient involvement, open dialogue, and care that takes patients’ needs and quality of life into account.
The project is based on a transdisciplinary approach that connects different academic disciplines with patients’ experiences and healthcare practice. It places particular emphasis on inclusion, active student involvement, and collaboration with patients. The three complementary research areas are linked with educational activities, creating opportunities to incorporate the knowledge gained through the project into university teaching. The collaboration will also lay the groundwork for long-term partnerships between the participating universities and for the development of future European research and education projects.
