Interprofessional Team Learning and Leaders in an Academic Health Care Organization

The purpose of this study is to explore leadership and interprofessional team learning in well-established specialist teams in an academic health care organization. It also illuminates the data with more precise team leadership theories to help advance interprofessional health care practice. Employing an interactionist ethnographic approach, the study focuses on exploring team leaders’ role, their perceptions, meanings, and behaviours within the culture of two teams in the department of nephrology in an academic health care organization. Qualitative data derived from interviews, observations, and documents were gathered over a two-year period to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the workings of the teams. The research is also informed by the experiences of the researcher who had been a member of the department of nephrology under study. Data analysis involved an inductive thematic analysis of observations, reflections, and interview transcripts. The three broad themes of this dissertation reflect the characteristics and activities of leaders of team learning: first, situational team leadership, as a process, affects the social context of interprofessional team-learning relationships, interactions, and activities within the complex culture of an academic health care organization. Second, team learning embodies the collective praxis of its members. The members inform the role of leading learning through the social construction of meaning in dialogue and their reflective practices. Third, effective team leadership ensures the transfer of collective knowledge to students and trainees. Effective leaders also help team members deal with the challenge of learning how to work within a well-established, specialized health care team as community of practice. Such a team has special capabilities that enable interprofessional team learning. Hence, a leader who learns how to use team learning to create new and collective knowledge will be able to create a learning experience for students, trainees, and team members who are focused on interprofessional practice and care. This study offers a contribution to the interprofessional education literature in two ways. First, the study’s use of theoretical perspectives provides new ways of thinking about leaders and learning in interprofessional communities of practice. Second, the study provides a rare empirical in-depth account of, interprofessional team leadership within well-established specialized teams in an academic health care organization.Ph