Project description
New professional roles (e.g. specialized nurses fulfilling clinical roles) are believed to contribute to contemporary problems of health workforce scarcity next to an increasingly elderly population, rising healthcare costs and growing demands for integrated and personalized care. Particularly nurses, with their embodied focus on patient needs and organizing capabilities, are focused on to developing new ways of clinical care at the intersection of ‘care’ and ‘cure’. At the same time, traditional professional jurisdictions appear to challenge (and hamper) the implementation and development of new professional roles in healthcare practice.
This research line comprises several national and international (EU) projects in which we study how new professional roles are introduced in healthcare, and how they are shaped (and reshaped) in the everyday clinical work and in healthcare governance. We explicitly take into account the different governance levels (i.e. micro, meso and macro levels) to examine how (inter)national policies on workforce development work out in everyday healthcare practice, and how these are influenced by negotiations at the level of healthcare organizations. As a consequence, the research adopts an iterative approach, focusing on experimenting rather than implementing: how new professional roles get shape is the consequence of the doings in everyday policy, healthcare organizations and clinical/care practice.
The research line encompasses the following projects
1. Munros (2012-16): international comparative research studying the costs and effects of new professional roles in 9 countries.
Funding: EU; FP7 project. de Bont, A., et al. (2016), 'Reconfiguring health workforce: A case-based comparative study explaining the increasingly diverse professional roles in Europe.', BMC Health Services Research, 16, 637-51.
Tsiachristas, A., et al. (2015), 'Costs and effects of new professional roles: Evidence from a literature review', Health Policy, 119, 1176-87.
2. Good practices of new professional roles in Dutch healthcare practices (2014-15)
Funding: V&VN and Napa. Wallenburg, I., de Bont, A., and Janssen, M. (2015), 'De rol van nurse practitioner and physician assistant in de zorg: Een praktijkonderzoek naar taakherschikking in de tweede- en derdelijnszorg in Nederland', iBMG-resarch reports. Rotterdam: institute Healtcare Management & Policy Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Wallenburg, I., Janssen, M., and de Bont, A. (2016), 'Taakherschikking pakt overal anders uit', Medisch Contact, 10, 34-36.
3. Experimenting with new professional roles in elderly care (start 2016)
Funding: ZuidOostZorg. Part of PhD project Jannine van Schothorst
4. Experimening with new nursing roles in hospital care
Funding: Reinier de Graaf Gasthuis
Part of PhD project Jannine van Schothorst. Van Schothorst, J., Weggelaar-Jansen, A. M. J. M. W., and Wallenburg, I. (2017), 'Verpleegkundige functiedifferentiatie in het Reinier de Graaf Gasthuis: tussenrapportage van een jaar experimenteren in proeftuinen'. Rotterdam: Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam.
Van Schothorst, J., et al. (2018), 'Regieverpleegkundigen en functiedifferentiatie: werkt het in de praktijk?', TVZ, 1, 28-31.