Abstract
Healthcare workers took center stage in the early unfolding drama of the COVID-19 pandemic. Subject to multiple demands, these workers embodied debates about the duties of professionals, the responsibilities of employers, and reasonable expectations of publics. These dynamics have long been of interest to sociologists studying professions. In this paper, we explore how healthcare workers were reorganized in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada. Using concepts of boundaries and boundary work, we analyzed the interface between employers, professions, and the state as played out through governmental orders and organizational policies. By placing the dynamics of reorganization in the context of existing policy trajectories, we are able to see both continuities and disruptions. In terms of continuities, the ability to rapidly mobilize the healthcare workforce reflected the historical incursion of policy into the content of healthcare professionals’ work. In terms of disruptions, the nascent policy trajectory of patient and caregiver involvement in health care was abruptly halted as redeployment activity centered around assessments of risk, governance, and accountability. Ultimately, this paper draws attention to relationships of expertise, power, and accountability between healthcare professions, governments, health service organizations and the public, offering potential insight into professional work in a post-pandemic world.
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Rowland, P., Albert, M., Kitto, S. (2021). Theorizing Reorganizations of Care: Boundary Work and the Professions During Ontario’s COVID-19 Response. In: Waring, J., Denis, JL., Reff Pedersen, A., Tenbensel, T. (eds) Organising Care in a Time of Covid-19. Organizational Behaviour in Healthcare. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82696-3_8
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