Toward human resource management in inter‐professional health practice: linking organizational culture, group identity and individual autonomy

Abstract

The literature on team and inter-professional care practice describes numerous barriers to the institutionalization of inter-professional healthcare. Responses to slow institutionalization of inter-professional healthcare practice have failed to describe change variables and to identify change agents relevant to inter-professional healthcare practice. The purpose of this paper is to (1) describe individual and organizational level barriers to collaborative practice in healthcare; (2) identify change variables relevant to the institutionalization of inter-professional practice at individual and organizational levels of analysis; and (3) identify human resource professionals as change agents and describe how the strategic use of the human resource function could transform individual and organizational level change variables and therefore facilitate the healthcare system's shift toward inter-professional practice. A proposed program of institutionalization includes the following components: a strategic plan to align human resource functions with organizational level inter-professional healthcare strategies, activities to enhance professional competencies and the organizational position of human resource personnel, activities to integrate inter-professional healthcare practices into the daily routines of institutional and individual providers, activities to stand up health provider champions as permanent leaders of inter-professional teams with human resource professionals as consultants and activities to bring all key players to the table including health providers.

Development of an HR Practitioner Competency Model and Determining the Important Business Competencies: An Empirical Study in Malaysia

“…Major changes in HRM practice took place after the inauguration of "Vision 2020" that aimed at shifting Malaysia towards a developed nation. This developmental plan brought about new challenges, such as (1) establishing a united Malaysian nation, (2) creating a psychologically liberated, secured, and developed Malaysian society, (3) developing a matured democratic society, (4) forming a community that has high morale, ethics, and religious strengths, (5) establishing a matured, liberal and tolerant society, (6) establishing a scientific and progressive society, (7) establishing a fully caring society, (8) ensuring an economically just society, and (9) establishing a prosperous society (Islam, 2010 (Tataw, 2012). In this regard, the New Economic Model (NEM) was launched in 2010 that envisioned economic growth to be primarily driven by the private sector in order to move the Malaysian economy into higher value-added state (Islam, 2010 Thirty competency factors were included as the items of "generic/behavioral competency" category, while 25 competency factors of "technical HR competency" category, and 35 competency factors of business competency category.…”

The barriers to empowering niche-innovations in long-term care

“…Contexts and change processes are very much dependent on each other (Loorbach and Rotmans, 2010;Tataw, 2012). As such, the context has to be suitable for the change process (Pavlova et al, 2009).…”

“…More specifically, Tataw (2012) outlines the importance of engaging professionals into change process: "upfront and open discussion of change with health professionals addressing fear issues such as loss of professional autonomy and economic harm [as well as the] involvement of frontline health professionals in the planning, implementation and constant review of the change process" (p.144) is needed to successfully experiment with niche-innovations and to change existing institutional practices.…”

“…Generally, it is known that motivated employees are needed to achieve change processes (Young and Ballarin, 2006;Tataw, 2012). The importance of motivation is also highlighted by Trotta et al (2012) who listed it among the key performance areas of hospitals as well as by van den Bosch (2010) who listed "motivation" as one of the key process criteria for successful experimentation.…”

“…Research in healthcare shows that healthcare organizations can chose diverging strategies depending on their visions. Therefore, they need to coordinate their support activities and resources according to their strategic vision Young and Ballarin, 2006;Tataw, 2012). In the underlying case, the experiments were not seen as organizational priorities as for instance the client portal in experiment 1 was merely an add up to the electronic client dossier.…”