Integration across professional and organizational boundaries in Danish Health Care

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Abstract

13th NOVO symposium The theme of this year’s symposium is “Sustainable work and inter professional collaboration in health care” Date: 12-13 dec 2019 Place: Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark Integration across professional and organizational boundaries in Danish Health Care Prof. Janne Seemann and ass.prof. Jeppe Gustafsson, Aalborg University The longstanding trend within medicine towards greater specialization intensifies fragmentation and silo problems in traditional health systems. Therefore, we have seen many different interventions to create integration and coherent patient flows across both intra- and inter-organizational health systems, mainly through new modes of organizing, managing and collaborating. However, integration across professional and organizational boundaries still remain one of the greatest challenges in developed health care systems (Rudkjøbing et al., 2014; Seemann & Gustafsson, 2016). The empirical background is primarily a qualitative longitudinal case study of a radical change initiative in Aalborg University Hospital (AAUH) situated in the North Region of Denmark. AAUH’s vision is that all patients should feel that their patient course is coherent, with few mishaps in transitions and with high quality. Focus is on improving coordination of patient flows through the hospital units and between the hospital and the primary care sector (municipalities and general practitioners). The radical initiative was launched as a comprehensive top down change project in 2013 and followed by several bottom-up projects The theoretical backdrop focuses on horizontal processes in and across professional organizations at levels of leadership, structure, systems and organizational culture. We are drawing on perspectives from research concerning organizational design, and inter-professional, inter-organizational theory of coordination and integration (Abbott 1988, Alter & Hage 1996, Oliver & Ebers 1998, McNulty & Ferlie 2002, Galbraith 2008, Cropper et al 2008, Scott et al 2000, Keast et al. 2014) as well as hybrid leadership (Byrkjeflot and Jespersen 2014). The overall aim of the trailing project is to document the main features of the change process and identify critical challenges for managers and employees to improve our understanding and gain more knowledge of dynamics related to the creation of coherent patient flows through horizontal integration. Patient involvement, which can be perceived as an integrative mechanism, is excluded from the study. Our findings indicate that integration across professional and organizational units demands multiple hybrid management, which in turn increase ambiguity and cross pressure in involved organizations, thereby requiring the development of organizational and individual capabilities to math multiple audits.
Translated title of the contributionSammenhæng på tværs af professionelle og organisatoriske grænseflader i det danske sundhedsvæsen
Original languageEnglish
Publication date12 Dec 2019
Number of pages1
Publication statusPublished - 12 Dec 2019
Event13th Novo symposium: “Sustainable work and inter professional collaboration in health care” - Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
Duration: 12 Dec 201913 Dec 2019
Conference number: 13

Conference

Conference13th Novo symposium
Number13
LocationTechnical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityLyngby
Period12/12/201913/12/2019

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