The Politics of Collaboration – A Critical Exploration of the Care Continuum
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Presenter: Dr Robyn Penny1, Associate Professor Carol Windsor2
1Children’s Health Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, 2Faculty of Health, School of Nursing, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Date of presentation: 27th October 2016
Abstract
Aim
Collaboration is perceived a necessary constituent of good practice in healthcare. The purpose of this research was to critically explore the concept of collaboration within a specific health care context. The research focus was collaboration in the transition between hospital and community care of women with newborn babies who had spent more than 48 hours in a special care nursery.
Method
In applying a critical constructionist framework semi-structured interviews were undertaken with child health nurses (CHNs), midwives and women. Interview data were analysed using grounded theory methods and the findings provided the basis for a critical exploration of the text of a sample of Australian policy documents that addressed collaboration.
Results
The research findings indicate that the concept of collaboration fulfils an important social function in healthcare that allows competing interests to coexist, complexities to be obscured, and power relations concealed. Collaboration is thus an ambiguous concept that is a valuable political, professional and managerial resource.
Conclusions
The research concludes that concepts such as collaboration have important implications for professional practice and for consumers. A significant practice/policy disjuncture exists that gives support to a call for policy making processes to be more obviously aligned with the interactional level of healthcare. In the future development of health care services nurses, midwives and consumers need to have a higher profile in the policy making process.