86
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Use of communities of practice in business and health care sectors: A systematic review

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Background

          Since being identified as a concept for understanding knowledge sharing, management, and creation, communities of practice (CoPs) have become increasingly popular within the health sector. The CoP concept has been used in the business sector for over 20 years, but the use of CoPs in the health sector has been limited in comparison.

          Objectives

          First, we examined how CoPs were defined and used in these two sectors. Second, we evaluated the evidence of effectiveness on the health sector CoPs for improving the uptake of best practices and mentoring new practitioners.

          Methods

          We conducted a search of electronic databases in the business, health, and education sectors, and a hand search of key journals for primary studies on CoP groups. Our research synthesis for the first objective focused on three areas: the authors' interpretations of the CoP concept, the key characteristics of CoP groups, and the common elements of CoP groups. To examine the evidence on the effectiveness of CoPs in the health sector, we identified articles that evaluated CoPs for improving health professional performance, health care organizational performance, professional mentoring, and/or patient outcome; and used experimental, quasi-experimental, or observational designs.

          Results

          The structure of CoP groups varied greatly, ranging from voluntary informal networks to work-supported formal education sessions, and from apprentice training to multidisciplinary, multi-site project teams. Four characteristics were identified from CoP groups: social interaction among members, knowledge sharing, knowledge creation, and identity building; however, these were not consistently present in all CoPs. There was also a lack of clarity in the responsibilities of CoP facilitators and how power dynamics should be handled within a CoP group. We did not find any paper in the health sector that met the eligibility criteria for the quantitative analysis, and so the effectiveness of CoP in this sector remained unclear.

          Conclusion

          There is no dominant trend in how the CoP concept is operationalized in the business and health sectors; hence, it is challenging to define the parameters of CoP groups. This may be one of the reasons for the lack of studies on the effectiveness of CoPs in the health sector. In order to improve the usefulness of the CoP concept in the development of groups and teams, further research will be needed to clarify the extent to which the four characteristics of CoPs are present in the mature and emergent groups, the expectations of facilitators and other participants, and the power relationship within CoPs.

          Related collections

          Most cited references54

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Appraising the quality of qualitative research.

          In the process of undertaking a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies of free-standing midwife-led units, the authors of this paper encountered a number of methodologically and epistemologically unresolved issues. One of these related to the assessment of the quality of qualitative research. In an iterative approach to scoping this issue, we identified eight existing checklists and summary frameworks. Some of these publications were opinion based, and some involved a synthesis of pre-existing frameworks. None of them provide a clear map of the criteria used in all their reviewed papers, and of the commonalities and differences between them. We critically review these frameworks and conclude that, although they are epistemologically and theoretically dense, they are excessively detailed for most uses. In order to reach a workable solution to the problem of the quality assessment of qualitative research, the findings from these frameworks and checklists were mapped together. Using a technique we have termed a 'redundancy approach' to eliminate non-essential criteria, we developed our own summary framework. The final synthesis was achieved through reflexive debate and discussion. Aspects of this discussion are detailed here. The synthesis is clearly rooted in a subjectivist epistemology, which views knowledge as constructed and hermeneutic in intent, encompassing individual, cultural and structural representations of reality.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            A hierarchy of evidence for assessing qualitative health research.

            The objective of this study is to outline explicit criteria for assessing the contribution of qualitative empirical studies in health and medicine, leading to a hierarchy of evidence specific to qualitative methods. This paper arose from a series of critical appraisal exercises based on recent qualitative research studies in the health literature. We focused on the central methodological procedures of qualitative method (defining a research framework, sampling and data collection, data analysis, and drawing research conclusions) to devise a hierarchy of qualitative research designs, reflecting the reliability of study conclusions for decisions made in health practice and policy. We describe four levels of a qualitative hierarchy of evidence-for-practice. The least likely studies to produce good evidence-for-practice are single case studies, followed by descriptive studies that may provide helpful lists of quotations but do not offer detailed analysis. More weight is given to conceptual studies that analyze all data according to conceptual themes but may be limited by a lack of diversity in the sample. Generalizable studies using conceptual frameworks to derive an appropriately diversified sample with analysis accounting for all data are considered to provide the best evidence-for-practice. Explicit criteria and illustrative examples are described for each level. A hierarchy of evidence-for-practice specific to qualitative methods provides a useful guide for the critical appraisal of papers using these methods and for defining the strength of evidence as a basis for decision making and policy generation.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: found
              Is Open Access

              Evolution of Wenger's concept of community of practice

              Background In the experience of health professionals, it appears that interacting with peers in the workplace fosters learning and information sharing. Informal groups and networks present good opportunities for information exchange. Communities of practice (CoPs), which have been described by Wenger and others as a type of informal learning organization, have received increasing attention in the health care sector; however, the lack of uniform operating definitions of CoPs has resulted in considerable variation in the structure and function of these groups, making it difficult to evaluate their effectiveness. Objective To critique the evolution of the CoP concept as based on the germinal work by Wenger and colleagues published between 1991 and 2002. Discussion CoP was originally developed to provide a template for examining the learning that happens among practitioners in a social environment, but over the years there have been important divergences in the focus of the concept. Lave and Wenger's earliest publication (1991) centred on the interactions between novices and experts, and the process by which newcomers create a professional identity. In the 1998 book, the focus had shifted to personal growth and the trajectory of individuals' participation within a group (i.e., peripheral versus core participation). The focus then changed again in 2002 when CoP was applied as a managerial tool for improving an organization's competitiveness. Summary The different interpretations of CoP make it challenging to apply the concept or to take full advantage of the benefits that CoP groups may offer. The tension between satisfying individuals' needs for personal growth and empowerment versus an organization's bottom line is perhaps the most contentious of the issues that make CoPs difficult to cultivate. Since CoP is still an evolving concept, we recommend focusing on optimizing specific characteristics of the concept, such as support for members interacting with each other, sharing knowledge, and building a sense of belonging within networks/teams/groups. Interventions that facilitate relationship building among members and that promote knowledge exchange may be useful for optimizing the function of these groups.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                Implement Sci
                Implementation Science : IS
                BioMed Central
                1748-5908
                2009
                17 May 2009
                : 4
                : 27
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Physical Therapy, University of British Columbia; Arthritis Research Centre of Canada, Vancouver, Canada
                [2 ]Ottawa Health Research Institute, Clinical Epidemiology Program, Centre for Best Practice, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
                [3 ]Centre for Health Technology Assessment, National Board of Health, Copenhagen, Denmark
                [4 ]Canadian Health Services Research Foundation, Ottawa, Canada
                [5 ]Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
                [6 ]Canadian Institutes of Health Research, School of Nursing, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
                Article
                1748-5908-4-27
                10.1186/1748-5908-4-27
                2694761
                19445723
                77a67dbd-4cde-4c96-b8a7-a26e1578a730
                Copyright © 2009 Li et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

                This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 21 January 2009
                : 17 May 2009
                Categories
                Systematic Review

                Medicine
                Medicine

                Comments

                Comment on this article