An Enquiry into Nurse-to-Nurse Collaboration Within the Older People Care Chain as Part of the Integrated Care: A Qualitative Study.

Terhi Lemetti,Päivi Voutilainen,Minna Stolt,Sini Eloranta,Riitta Suhonen

doi:10.5334/ijic.2418

Abstract

Introduction:Health care systems for older people are becoming more complex and care for older people, in the transition between hospital and primary healthcare requires more systematic collaboration between nurses. This study describes nurses’ perceptions of their collaboration when working between hospital and primary healthcare within the older people care chain.Theory and methods:Using a qualitative approach, informed by grounded theory, six focus groups were conducted with a purposive sample of registered nurses (n = 28) from hospitals (n = 14) and primary healthcare (n = 14) during 2013. The data were analyzed using dimensional analysis.Findings:Four dimensions of collaboration were identified: 1) Context and Situation, 2) Conditions, 3) Processes and Interactions and 4) The Consequences of nurse-to-nurse collaboration within the older people care chain. These four dimensions were then conceptualized into a model of nurse-to-nurse collaboration.Discussion and conclusion:Improved collaboration is useful for the safe, timely and controlled transfer of older people between hospital and primary healthcare organizations and also in healthcare education. The findings in this study of nurse-to-nurse collaboration provides direction and opportunities to improve collaboration and subsequently, the continuity and integration in older people care in the transition between organizations.

Highlights

Health care systems for older people are becoming more complex and care for older people, in the transition between hospital and primary healthcare requires more systematic collaboration between nurses
The analysis suggests that nurse-to-nurse collaboration in the older person care chain contains four dimensions
These dimensions are: 1) The Context and Situation, 2) The Conditions that affect nurse-to-nurse collaboration, 3) The Processes and Interactions within nurse-to-nurse collaboration and 4) The Consequences of nurse-to-nurse collaboration. These four dimensions form the basis of a model of nurse-to-nurse collaboration between hospital and primary healthcare nurses (Figure 1) as the basis of a substantive grounded theory

Summary

Introduction

Health care systems for older people are becoming more complex and care for older people, in the transition between hospital and primary healthcare requires more systematic collaboration between nurses. FI ‖ Department of Nursing Science, University of Turku/Turku of the total population [7] Of these older people over 140,000 were frequent users of social and healthcare services [8] and used 90% of the Finnish primary healthcare service provision in 2014 [9]. This service usage by older people is likely to increase as Finland, like many countries in Europe, move towards home-based care [10] This position is mirrored worldwide with over 19 million nurses [11] working together to integrate care between different parts of various organizations [12] and to promote, maintain and restore the health [13] of over 500 million people aged 60 and over [14]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion