The (stalled) progress of interprofessional collaboration: the role of gender

Abstract

Researchers have demonstrated that team-based, collaborative care improves patient outcomes and fosters safer, more effective health care. Despite such positive findings, interprofessional collaboration (IPC) has been somewhat stunted in its adoption. Utilizing a socio-historical lens and employing expectation states theory, we explore potential reasons behind IPC’s slow integration. More specifically, we argue that a primary mechanism hindering the achievement of the full promise of IPC stems not only from the rigid occupational status hierarchy nested within health care delivery, but also from the broader status differences between men and women – and how these societal-level disparities are exercised and perpetuated within health care delivery. For instance, we examine not only the historical differences in occupational status of the more “gendered” professions within health care delivery teams (e.g. medicine and nursing), but also the persistent under-representation of women in the physician workforce, especially in leadership positions. Doing so reveals how gender representation, or lack thereof, could potentially lead to ineffective, mismanaged and segmented interprofessional care. Implications and potential solutions are discussed.

• Health and social care
• interprofessional collaboration
• teamwork

Notes

¹The historical overview of the gendered nature of health care predominantly focuses on doctors and nurses due to the abundance of literature on those fields compared with the paucity of historical literature on other health care occupations. Despite this focus, however, the same principles and theories outlined in this and subsequent sections of the paper are expected to apply to other health care occupations.