Examining professional identity in newly integrated care teams

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Sociology of Professions
• Interprofessional Education

Background:

• Integrated care models are crucial for modern healthcare delivery.
• Understanding professional identity within these teams is underdeveloped.
• Team members' professional identities impact integration success.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the professional identity of members within integrated care teams.
• To inform strategies supporting successful team integration.
• To identify challenges and facilitators of professional identity in integrated settings.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative case study approach.
• Observations, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups were utilized.
• Study included nursing, therapy, and mental health nursing professions in UK community teams.

Main Results:

• Profession-specific identities remained salient, even with emerging team identification.
• Key themes included professional role, perceived lack of understanding, defensiveness, and security.
• Participants used tactics to assert professional value and counteract perceived threats.

Conclusions:

• Recognizing and nurturing profession-specific identities is vital.
• Acknowledging interprofessional differences can improve understanding and reduce defensiveness.
• Supporting individual professional identity enables the formation of a shared team identity.