Interaction beyond bounadries

New ways of collaboration between health care providers, i.e. physicians and nurses in hospital and community health care, need to be considered to meet the growing need for post-hospital home health care (HHC). Despite great emphasis on clarifying what i nformation should be exchanged between organizations, the existing information flow and content is characterized by mono-professional patterns. The consequences include lack of information, inaccurate information, errors, and much time spent by providers to gather adequate information. We have limited knowledge about providers reasoning when they produce and exchange information across organizations. In this project we aim to develop knowledge about hospital nurses and doctors production and exchange of i nformation when they interact with colleagues in the community health care organization. Four research questions are identified: 1. What criteria do health providers use in hospital care systems when they provide information about the patient's need for community care (CC) throughout the patient's stay, from admission to discharge? 2. How do health providers in CC evaluate the information received from their colleagues in hospital care systems about the patient's hospital stay? 3. How do health provider s use the patient record in the information exchange with CC during the patient's stay and what effect does the electronic patient record system have on the information exchange? 4. What is the significance of the characteristics of the profession and or ganizations for the production and exchange of information? Both interviews and questionnaires will be used in two phases. First, interviews will be conducted with health providers from the hospital and community care. The results will form the basis for developing a questionnaire. Second, a representative selection of health providers of medical and surgical departments in general hospitals in Norway will be surveyed using this questionnaire