Communities of Practice in Health and Social Care

Communities of Practice in Health and Social Care highlights how communities of practice (CoPs) can make service development and quality improvement in health and social care easier to initiate and more sustainable. Using a series of case studies from the UK and Canada the book demonstrates how the theory of CoPs is implemented in the delivery of health and social care and highlights the associated potential, complexities, advantages and disadvantages. Communities of Practice in Health and Social Care equips practitioners, managers, educators and practice mentors with the knowledge and skills to facilitate the development and maintenance of Communities of Practice and highlights how the effects of Communities of Practice might be made explicit.

Foreword Etienne Wenger vii Acknowledgements x List of Contributors xi Part 1 Introducing Communities of Practice 1 Chapter 1 Introducing Communities of Practice 3 Andrée le May Part 2 Getting Started 17 Chapter 2 The EXTRA Community of Practice: Incubating Change 19 Nina Stipich, Jane Coutts and Mireille Brosseau Chapter 3 The Interior Health Nurse Practitioner Community of Practice: Facilitating NP Integration in a Regional Health Authority 28 Linda Sawchenko Chapter 4 Developing Dermatology Outpatient Services through a Community of Practice 36 Judith Lathlean and Michelle Myall Part 3 Generating Professional and Patient Capital 47 Chapter 5 Practice Made Perfect: Discovering the Roles of a Community of General Practice 49 John Gabbay and Andrée le May Chapter 6 Learning Nursing in the Workplace Community: The Generation of Professional Capital 66 Mary Gobbi Chapter 7 Communities of Practice and Learning Health Practice in Developing Countries 83 Alex le May Chapter 8 Generating Patient Capital: The Contribution of Storytelling in Communities of Practice Designed to Develop Older People’s Services 95 Andrée le May Part 4 So What? 107 Chapter 9 What Works, What Counts and What Matters? Communities of Practice as a Locus forContributing to Resource Allocation Decisions 109 Helen Roberts, Alan Shiell and Madeleine Stevens Chapter 10 Where Does This Get Us and Where Will We Go from Here? 118 Andrée le May References 121 Index 129