Lay Healthcare Workers’ Identity and Collaboration: Navigating Innovative Healthcare

• In Event: 2451 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 2. Deskilling

Abstract

Changes to the organization of medicine have prompted the creation of new types of healthcare workers. Many of these new positions are designed to require no licensure and are tailored to building connections with patients. These new positions, often called lay healthcare workers, may be used to complement existing healthcare services, but often their success is contingent on their ability to collaborate with patients’ current healthcare providers. This article uses semi-structured individual and group interview data collected with members of a new team designed to support persons with serious illness. The new team included lay healthcare workers, called “care guides.” We analyze interview data for themes related to creating the new role and collaborating with existing healthcare workers. We find that care guides created a sense of value through boundary-making between themselves and other providers, but that professional healthcare workers (with licenses and credentials) expressed hesitation and resistance toward care guides’ boundary work. Professional workers reinscribed professional boundaries, which at times created a stressful and toxic work environment for all. These findings have implications for scholarly understanding of the creation of new roles and contribute to debates about the deskilling of healthcare.

Authors

• Cindy L. Cain, University of Alabama at Birmingham

• Caty Taborda, University of Minnesota

• Monica Frazer, Optum Insight