Coordination of informal care and voluntary assistance in the Norwegian health care sector.
In many countries, there has been a growing focus on informal carers and volunteer’s participation in care of the older people and others who need care. Hence, traditional care has been replaced by integrated care, encompassing combinations of formal and informal providers who co-operate and co-ordinate their activities to deliver tailor-made care. With an increasing involvement of informal caregivers and voluntary assistance in the healthcare sector, there has also been an increased focus in the need for management and co-ordination. There is little research that has directly highlighted how coordination of volunteers affects the organisation with regards to documentation requirements and bureaucratic workload. Actually, there is a need for usable systems that ensure easy and flexible communication, coordination and documentation and.
Study 1
Key challenges and coping strategies in the coordination of volunteers in healthcare services: A qualitative systematic review. The purpose with this systematic review is to map current strategies for coordination between healthcare services and volunteers.
Submitted
Study 2
Communication and information exchange between primary healthcare employees and volunteers – challenges, needs and possibilities for technology support
This study addresses information exchange and communication between healthcare employees and volunteers and gives suggestions of information system requirements that might contribute to better coordination of volunteers.
The research questions are as follows:
- RQ1: How do healthcare employees and volunteers communicate and exchange information?
- RQ2: What are the challenges and needs in the information exchange and communication processes, and how might information technology support these processes?
Published Open access at Health and Social Care in the Community
Study 3
Exploring the benefits and barriers of implementing an electronic collaboration tool to facilitate communication and coordination between healthcare services and volunteers in three municipalities in Norway: A qualitative case study using Normalization Process Theory
In progress
