Bridging the Information Gap in Patient Transitions, 2012 - qualitative interviews

The health care sector is facing huge challenges due to the demographic and economic constraints. The municipal health care sector is expected to receive an even more important role in the health care sector in the years to come. This implies a greater need for collaboration and communication, hence interaction, between health care providers, both across the sector and within the different parts. One often proposed solution to improve interaction in health care is to employ ICT, so-called eHealth. By strengthening interaction, the aim is in turn to improve quality of care for patients and make health care more efficient. The overall objective of the project is to develop knowledge about intra- and inter-organisational electronic interaction between health care providers. More specifically, our aim is to obtain knowledge of how the introduction of a standardised tool for electronic interaction, illustrated by the ELIN-k system, affects collaboration and cooperation between nurses and physicians in municipal and with nurses and physician in the specialist health care. The project is divided into two sub-objectives: 1) exploring local adaption of a central guideline and how information and communication practices are affected, and 2) to describe how the national initiated ELIN-k standard affects the organisations of interaction and the nurses and physician experiences regarding the introduction of the system for electronic interaction.
We will draw on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to study the introduction of the ELIN-k system applying participant observation, interviews, surveys and document studies.