Boosting multi-professional collaboration in palliative care through digital technologies: an action design research study

Abstract

The success of palliative care requires collaboration among multiple professions within a sensibly digitized work system. The diverse perspectives and expertise of team members inform their collective endeavor, often leading to differing interpretations and priorities in patient care. This diversity necessitates a continual exchange of knowledge and information. Current technologies, including the hospital information system, do not foster such collaboration, particularly in palliative care. This study explores digital enhancements that can promote multi-professional collaboration (MPC). The authors employed action design research and used a work system theory lense to examine the palliative care work systems in two hospital wards in Germany. Through extensive on-site observations and interventions with practitioners, the study identified challenges that arose during MPC. This paper presents the proposed organizational and technical solutions. The paper provides design principles and guidelines for a collaboration support system to maximize MPC. Theoretical contributions include insights into the challenges of MPC and design knowledge about collaboration support. This work can inform practitioners about common challenges and offers potential solutions and guidance for implementing a collaboration support system.