Working on working together. A systematic review on how healthcare professionals contribute to interprofessional collaboration

Professionals in healthcare are increasingly encouraged to work together. This has acted as a catalyst for research on interprofessional collaboration. Authors suggest developing interprofessional collaboration is not just the job of managers and policy makers; it also requires active contributions of professionals. Empirical understanding of whether professionals make such contributions and if so, how and why, remains fragmented. This systematic review of 64 studies from the past 20 years shows there is considerable evidence for professionals actively contributing to interprofessional collaboration. Although the evidence is limited, we can show they do so in three distinct ways: by bridging professional, social, physical and task-related gaps, by negotiating overlaps in roles and tasks, and by creating spaces to be able to do so. Professionals from different professions seem to make different contributions. Moreover, differences exist between collaborative settings and healthcare subsectors. We conclude by proposing a research agenda to advance our understanding of these contributions in theoretical, methodological and empirical ways.

医疗健康领域的专业人员正日益被倡导开展协同工作，这一趋势为跨专业协作（interprofessional collaboration）研究提供了重要的催化动力。已有研究指出，推动跨专业协作并非仅为管理者与政策制定者的职责，同样需要专业人员的积极参与与贡献。然而，目前学界对于专业人员是否会作出此类贡献、若作出贡献则其方式与动因为何的实证认知仍较为零散。本研究针对过去20年间的64项相关研究开展系统综述，结果显示，已有大量证据表明专业人员会积极参与跨专业协作。尽管相关证据仍有局限，但本研究可证实专业人员的协作参与主要通过三种明确路径实现：一是弥合专业、社会、物理层面及任务相关的差距；二是协调角色与任务中的重叠部分；三是创造可供协作开展的空间。来自不同专业领域的专业人员，其参与协作的方式似乎存在差异。此外，不同协作场景与医疗健康细分领域之间也存在差异。本研究最后提出一项研究议程，以期从理论、方法与实证层面进一步深化对专业人员协作贡献的认知。