Collaboration across organizational boarders, the referral case

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Healthcare Management
• Digital Health

Background:

• Electronic referrals are crucial for patient care coordination but face slow adoption globally.
• Existing electronic health record (EHR) systems, referral standards, and technical infrastructure are often underutilized.
• Barriers to electronic referral diffusion persist despite technological readiness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze shortcomings in the Norwegian electronic referral deployment process.
• To explore how enhanced collaboration can improve electronic referral implementation.
• To identify the role of General Practitioners (GPs) as boundary spanners in healthcare collaboration.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative analysis of the Norwegian electronic referral deployment.
• Examination of collaborative processes between different healthcare organizations.
• Focus on the role of GPs in part-time hospital consultant positions.

Main Results:

• The study identifies specific challenges within the Norwegian context hindering electronic referral adoption.
• Collaboration among healthcare actors is shown to be vital for overcoming implementation barriers.
• GPs acting as practice consultants can bridge organizational divides and improve mutual understanding.

Conclusions:

• Active involvement of practice consultants is essential for improving inter-organizational understanding and workflows.
• ICT system design must actively support collaboration across organizational boundaries in healthcare.
• Strategic use of boundary spanners like GPs can accelerate the adoption and effectiveness of electronic referral systems.