Organizational Features and Their Importance in Elderly Care and Preventive Work in the Municipalities, 1995

The aim of the project was to increase knowledge about the importance of organizational features for how nurses perform their duties within the municipality's health service. This is a comparative survey of three nursing services; Health care services, home care services and nursing services at nursing homes. There are two main issues that are highlighted: - What is the meaning of structural characteristics for the nursing service in the municipalities? Can it point to organizational structures that inhibit or promote goal achievement in the services? - What adjustments regarding Working methods and cooperation do the nurses perform within the formal structures? The results show that the three organizational services appear paradoxically different and with different features in a number of areas such as; Influence on case processing; Autonomy in professional doctrine; interaction scope; Reliance on partners and adjustments to the exit structures. This is impossible to understand without looking at the distinctive organizational contexts, tasks, history and background of the three services. This has been done by combining organizational and occupational sociological perspectives and by integrating an extensive and intensive study plan with quantitative data on the three nursing services.