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AIM:

To explore the perceptions of staff working in and referring to community-based intermediate care teams in Wales.

BACKGROUND:

Central and devolved governments have high expectations of intermediate care to promote independence and quality of life for older people and to solve the system pressures within the acute hospital sector. Developing an evidence base of the effectiveness of a model of care that is characterized by diversity and difference in practice is problematic.

METHOD:

BACKGROUND:

High quality end-of-life care in the community is achieved with effective multidisciplinary teamwork, interprofessional communication between GPs and district nurses, and early referral of patients to district nurses. These aspects of palliative care are highlighted in the Gold Standards Framework, a programme recently established in UK primary care.

AIM:

To investigate the extent to which the framework influences interprofessional relationships and communication, and to compare GPs' and nurses' experiences.

DESIGN OF STUDY:

UK government policy is encouraging healthcare staff to blur traditional roles, in the drive to increase joint working between practitioners. However, there is currently a lack of clarity regarding the impact that changes to traditional working practice might have on staff delivering the services, or on patient care. In this article, we report findings from three qualitative case studies examining interprofessional practice in stroke care, in which the influence of professional differences emerged as a significant theme.

AIM:

To extract meaning from registered nurses' lived experiences in their professional collaboration with orthopaedic surgeons.

BACKGROUND:

Interprofessional collaboration between registered nurses and orthopaedic surgeons faces challenges on many levels. The literature offers theories on collaboration, but reality seems to be in conflict with theory, especially in somatic hospitals. Little empirical research on lived experience has been conducted in these settings.

METHOD:

In this article, I explore what happens when specialist palliative care staff meet together to discuss patients under their care. Many studies (e.g., Atkinson) have discussed how health care practitioners in various settings use rhetorical strategies when presenting cases in situations such as ward rounds and team meetings. Strategies for arguing and persuading are central to medical practice in the interprofessional context.

AIM:

To examine the work and perceived impact of a dedicated specialist care homes support team.

METHOD:

A constructivist methodology was adopted. Data were collected in the form of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with staff, telephone interviews with managers, observation of meetings and teaching sessions, and analysis of documents.

FINDINGS:

This project brought together community-based practitioners and academics to develop and deliver interventions designed to enhance the leadership abilities of the designated leaders of seven rural/small town-based palliative care teams. Members of these community-based teams have already gained recognition for their teams' leadership and service delivery in their communities. All of the teams had worked closely with most members of the academic team prior to this project.

PubMed URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19005957

CONTEXT: The growing emphasis on teamwork within the National Health Service (NHS) has made it a priority to understand how health care teams learn together and cope with change.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore how collective learning and change happen in primary care teams and how the process varies across the disciplines of general medical practice, pharmacy and dentistry.

METHODS: This study reports on qualitative data gathered from 10 primary care teams over 1 year, by means of observational visits and 38 semi-structured interviews.

Registered nurses (RNs) in Ontario have been asked to work collaboratively with family physicians (FPs) and other healthcare professionals in the family practice setting to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare delivery (OFPN 2005). Yet, little is known about the optimal utilization of the RN's role in family practice. This study builds on recent conversations regarding utilization of the nursing workforce (Oelke et al. 2008) and the nursing role (White et al.