Care planning and decision-making in teams in Swedish elderly care: A study of interprofessional collaboration and professional boundaries

Abstract

In front-line practice, joint working between different professionals in health/social care and rehabilitation is regarded as a means to reach a comprehensive assessment of the needs of the older care recipients, leading to decisions on appropriate care and services. The aim of this study was to examine professional collaboration and professional boundaries in interprofessional care planning teams. Two different care planning teams were studied, one performing care planning in the homes of older individuals and the other performing care planning for older people in hospital wards. The empirical data consisted of audio-recorded care planning meetings and interviews with the professionals in the teams. The integration between the professionals involved was most noticeable in the investigation and assessment phase, while it was lower in the planning phase and almost non-existent in decision-making. The home care planning team tended to work in a more integrated manner than the discharge planning team. The importance of clarifying the roles of all professions concerned with needs assessment and care planning for older people became evident in this study.

Keywords::

• Decision-making
• interprofessional boundaries
• interprofessional collaboration
• older people
• Sweden
• team planning

Acknowledgements

First of all, the author thanks the study participants. She also thanks the reviewers and the editor for valuable comments, helping her to improve the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

Financial support for this study was provided by the Vårdal Institute and Vinnvård Foundation. The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

^*Four members and two alternates of the home care planning team, and six members of the DPTs.