TY - JOUR
T1 - Transforming maternity care: obstetric partnerships as a policy instrument for integration
T2 - obstetric partnerships as a policy instrument for integration
AU - Lips, SR
AU - Molenaar, Joyce
AU - Schuitmaker-Warnaar, Tjerk Jan
N1 - Funding Information: This work was funded by ZonMW , The Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (grant numbers 154031996 and 209010002 ). Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Elsevier B.V. Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/11
Y1 - 2020/11
N2 - Increasing continuity in Dutch maternity care is considered pivotal to improve safety and client-centeredness. Closer collaboration between the historically relatively autonomous professionals and organizations in maternity care is deemed conditional to reach this goal, both by maternity care professionals and policy makers. Governmental policy therefore strives for organizational and financial integration. One of the policy measures has been to stimulate interprofessional and interorganizational collaboration through local obstetric partnerships. This study aimed to gain insight into whether this policy measure supported professionals in reaching the policy aim of increasing integration in the maternity care system. We therefore conducted 73 semistructured interviews with maternity care professionals in the region Northwest Netherlands, from 2014 to 2016. Respondents expressed much willingness to intensify interprofessional and interorganizational collaboration and experienced obstetric partnerships as contributing to this. As such, stimulating integration through obstetric partnerships can be considered a suitable policy measure. However, collaborating within the partnerships simultaneously highlighted deep-rooted dividing structures (organizational, educational, legal, financial) in the maternity care system, especially at the systemic level. These were experienced to hinder collaboration, but difficult for the professionals to influence, as they lacked knowledge, skills, resources and mandate. A lack of clear and timely guidance and support from policy, counterbalancing these barriers, limited partnerships' potential to unify professionals and integrate their services.
AB - Increasing continuity in Dutch maternity care is considered pivotal to improve safety and client-centeredness. Closer collaboration between the historically relatively autonomous professionals and organizations in maternity care is deemed conditional to reach this goal, both by maternity care professionals and policy makers. Governmental policy therefore strives for organizational and financial integration. One of the policy measures has been to stimulate interprofessional and interorganizational collaboration through local obstetric partnerships. This study aimed to gain insight into whether this policy measure supported professionals in reaching the policy aim of increasing integration in the maternity care system. We therefore conducted 73 semistructured interviews with maternity care professionals in the region Northwest Netherlands, from 2014 to 2016. Respondents expressed much willingness to intensify interprofessional and interorganizational collaboration and experienced obstetric partnerships as contributing to this. As such, stimulating integration through obstetric partnerships can be considered a suitable policy measure. However, collaborating within the partnerships simultaneously highlighted deep-rooted dividing structures (organizational, educational, legal, financial) in the maternity care system, especially at the systemic level. These were experienced to hinder collaboration, but difficult for the professionals to influence, as they lacked knowledge, skills, resources and mandate. A lack of clear and timely guidance and support from policy, counterbalancing these barriers, limited partnerships' potential to unify professionals and integrate their services.
KW - Integrated care
KW - Intersectoral collaboration
KW - Maternity Care
KW - Obstetrics
KW - Policy
KW - Qualitative research
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086442704&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/ca209f52-63b6-36fa-8445-1ee50498c090/
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2020.05.019
DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2020.05.019
M3 - Article
SN - 0168-8510
VL - 124
SP - 1245
EP - 1253
JO - Health Policy
JF - Health Policy
IS - 11
ER -