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Reflections on two years after establishing an orthogeriatric unit: a focus group study of healthcare professionals’ expectations and experiences

BACKGROUND: For decades hospitals have been “vertically” organized, with the risk that specialization leads to fragmented and one-sided views of patient care and treatment that may cause poor communication and coordination of care and treatment. Two years after the introduction of an orthogeriatric...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Abrahamsen, C., Nørgaard, B., Draborg, E., Nielsen, D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5574105/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28841861
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-017-2550-3
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author Abrahamsen, C.
Nørgaard, B.
Draborg, E.
Nielsen, D.
author_facet Abrahamsen, C.
Nørgaard, B.
Draborg, E.
Nielsen, D.
author_sort Abrahamsen, C.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: For decades hospitals have been “vertically” organized, with the risk that specialization leads to fragmented and one-sided views of patient care and treatment that may cause poor communication and coordination of care and treatment. Two years after the introduction of an orthogeriatric unit for elderly patients admitted with fragility fractures, we studied the involved healthcare professionals’ perspectives and experiences with working in an interprofessional organization. METHODS: We performed four focus groups interviews with 19 healthcare workers representing different professions. The interviews were analysed using systematic text condensation (STC). RESULTS: Three themes were identified: 1) A patient-centred approach, 2) An opportunity for professional growth and 3) The benefits of interprofessional collaboration. The interviewees emphasized in particular the systematic and frequent face-to-face communication enabled by the interprofessional team meetings as essential to their feeling of enhanced collegial solidarity. All groups expressed their respect for other groups’ competences and their vital contributions to good orthogeriatric care. However, collaboration was challenged by the groups’ divergent views of the patients and of the relevance of the information given in the weekly meetings. Heavy workloads were also mentioned. The opportunity for professional growth was also felt to be imperilled by some professionals. CONCLUSIONS: All participants indicated their view that the orthogeriatric organization had improved the quality of care and treatment. Furthermore, good communication, mutual respect for other professional competences and shared goals were found to have enhanced interprofessional collaboration and improved the sense of having a shared mission. However, differences in approaches and expectations continued to challenge the orthogeriatric model after 2 years. Neither did all professionals find orthogeriatric care professionally challenging.
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spelling pubmed-55741052017-08-30 Reflections on two years after establishing an orthogeriatric unit: a focus group study of healthcare professionals’ expectations and experiences Abrahamsen, C. Nørgaard, B. Draborg, E. Nielsen, D. BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: For decades hospitals have been “vertically” organized, with the risk that specialization leads to fragmented and one-sided views of patient care and treatment that may cause poor communication and coordination of care and treatment. Two years after the introduction of an orthogeriatric unit for elderly patients admitted with fragility fractures, we studied the involved healthcare professionals’ perspectives and experiences with working in an interprofessional organization. METHODS: We performed four focus groups interviews with 19 healthcare workers representing different professions. The interviews were analysed using systematic text condensation (STC). RESULTS: Three themes were identified: 1) A patient-centred approach, 2) An opportunity for professional growth and 3) The benefits of interprofessional collaboration. The interviewees emphasized in particular the systematic and frequent face-to-face communication enabled by the interprofessional team meetings as essential to their feeling of enhanced collegial solidarity. All groups expressed their respect for other groups’ competences and their vital contributions to good orthogeriatric care. However, collaboration was challenged by the groups’ divergent views of the patients and of the relevance of the information given in the weekly meetings. Heavy workloads were also mentioned. The opportunity for professional growth was also felt to be imperilled by some professionals. CONCLUSIONS: All participants indicated their view that the orthogeriatric organization had improved the quality of care and treatment. Furthermore, good communication, mutual respect for other professional competences and shared goals were found to have enhanced interprofessional collaboration and improved the sense of having a shared mission. However, differences in approaches and expectations continued to challenge the orthogeriatric model after 2 years. Neither did all professionals find orthogeriatric care professionally challenging. BioMed Central 2017-08-25 /pmc/articles/PMC5574105/ /pubmed/28841861 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-017-2550-3 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Abrahamsen, C.
Nørgaard, B.
Draborg, E.
Nielsen, D.
Reflections on two years after establishing an orthogeriatric unit: a focus group study of healthcare professionals’ expectations and experiences
title Reflections on two years after establishing an orthogeriatric unit: a focus group study of healthcare professionals’ expectations and experiences
title_full Reflections on two years after establishing an orthogeriatric unit: a focus group study of healthcare professionals’ expectations and experiences
title_fullStr Reflections on two years after establishing an orthogeriatric unit: a focus group study of healthcare professionals’ expectations and experiences
title_full_unstemmed Reflections on two years after establishing an orthogeriatric unit: a focus group study of healthcare professionals’ expectations and experiences
title_short Reflections on two years after establishing an orthogeriatric unit: a focus group study of healthcare professionals’ expectations and experiences
title_sort reflections on two years after establishing an orthogeriatric unit: a focus group study of healthcare professionals’ expectations and experiences
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5574105/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28841861
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-017-2550-3
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