Study title

New ways of collaboration between health care providers, i.e. physicians and nurses in hospital and the community health care need to be taken into account to meet the challenges in health care where more patients need post-hospital home health care (HHC). Despite great emphasis on clarifying what information should be exchanged between the organisations - existing information flow and content is characterized by mono-professional patterns. The implication is lack of information, inaccurate information, errors, and that the providers spend much time to receive adequate information. We have limited knowledge about the providers' reasoning when they produce and exchange information across organisations. In this project we aim to develop knowledge about hospital nurses' and doctors' production and exchange of information when they interact with colleagues in the community health care. Four research questions are identified: 1. What criteria do health providers use in hospital care systems when they provide information about the patient's need for community care (CC) throughout the patient's stay, from admission to discharge? 2. How do health providers in CC evaluate the information received from their colleagues in hospital care systems about the patient's hospital stay? 3. How do health providers use the patient journal in the information exchange with CC during the patient's stay and what effect does the electronic patient journal system have on the information exchange? 4. What is the significance of the characteristics of the professions and organizations in the production and exchange of information? Both interviews and questionnaires will be used through two phases. First, interviews will be conducted with health providers from the hospital and community care. The results of these interviews will be the basis for the development of a questionnaire. Second a representative selection of health providers of medical and surgical departments in general...