RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Collaboration across health care professions is critical in efficiently and effectively managing complex and chronic health conditions, yet interprofessional care does not happen automatically. Professional associations have a key role in setting a profession's agenda, maintaining professional identity, and establishing priorities. The associations' external communication is commonly undertaken through social media platforms, such as Twitter. Despite the valuable insights potentially available into professional associations through such communication, to date, their messaging has not been examined. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to identify the cues disseminated by professional associations that represent 5 health care professions spanning 5 nations. METHODS: Using a back-iterative application programming interface methodology, public tweets were sourced from professional associations that represent 5 health care professions that have key roles in community-based health care: general practice, nursing, pharmacy, physiotherapy, and social work. Furthermore, the professional associations spanned Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. A lexical analysis was conducted of the tweets using Leximancer (Leximancer Pty Ltd) to clarify relationships within the discourse. RESULTS: After completing a lexical analysis of 50,638 tweets, 7 key findings were identified. First, the discourse was largely devoid of references to interprofessional care. Second, there was no explicit discourse pertaining to physiotherapists. Third, although all the professions represented in this study support patients, discourse pertaining to general practitioners was most likely to be connected with that pertaining to patients. Fourth, tweets pertaining to pharmacists were most likely to be connected with discourse pertaining to latest and research. Fifth, tweets about social workers were unlikely to be connected with discourse pertaining to health or care. Sixth, notwithstanding a few exceptions, the findings across the different nations were generally similar, suggesting their generality. Seventh and last, tweets pertaining to physiotherapists were most likely to refer to discourse pertaining to profession. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that health care professional associations do not use Twitter to disseminate cues that reinforce the importance of interprofessional care. Instead, they largely use this platform to emphasize what they individually deem to be important and advance the interests of their respective professions. Therefore, there is considerable opportunity for professional associations to assert how the profession they represent complements other health care professions and how the professionals they represent can enact interprofessional care for the benefit of patients and carers.
Assuntos
Sinais (Psicologia) , Mídias Sociais , Humanos , Estados Unidos , Comunicação , Canadá , Farmacêuticos , Atenção à SaúdeRESUMO
A collaborative group drawn from various local public institutions and organizations has been reflecting since 2007 on the issue of aging populations and the prevention of age-related dependency within the framework of a public health project. This paper describes the approach used in this research and the results produced by a working group that was asked to imagine ideal elderly care institutions for the future. Based on an?internet forum and semi-structured interviews, four workshops were organized during a?symposium attended by local professionals specializing in gerontology. Thirty recommendations were put forward, grouped according to eight separate items. The various recommendations reflect three levels of innovation: innovation aimed at translating discourse into practice; innovation aimed at improving current practices; and innovation involving a change in long-established norms and habits. The practical implementation of these innovations will begin shortly with the support of a number of elderly care institutions.
Assuntos
Instituição de Longa Permanência para Idosos , Saúde Pública , Geriatria , HumanosRESUMO
RESEARCH QUESTION: We are looking at the process of structuring an integrated care system as an innovative process that swings back and forth between the diversity of the actors involved, local aspirations and national and regional regulations. We believe that innovation is enriched by the variety of the actors involved, but may also be blocked or disrupted by that diversity. Our research aims to add to other research, which, when questioning these integrated systems, analyses how the actors involved deal with diversity without really questioning it. CASE STUDY: The empirical basis of the paper is provided by case study analysis. The studied integrated care system is a French healthcare network that brings together healthcare professionals and various organisations in order to improve the way in which interventions are coordinated and formalised, in order to promote better detection and diagnosis procedures and the implementation of a care protocol. We consider this case as instrumental in developing theoretical proposals for structuring an integrated care system in light of the diversity of the actors involved. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: We are proposing a model for structuring an integrated care system in light of the enacted diversity of the actors involved. This model is based on three factors: the diversity enacted by the leaders, three stances for considering the contribution made by diversity in the structuring process and the specific leading role played by those in charge of the structuring process. Through this process, they determined how the actors involved in the project were differentiated, and on what basis those actors were involved. By mobilising enacted diversity, the leaders are seeking to channel the emergence of a network in light of their own representation of that network. This model adds to published research on the structuring of integrated care systems.
