DIMENSIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SPECIALIST ROLE WITHIN A TEAM (CASE OF A REHABILITATION TEAM)

Research problem: Specialists comprising rehabilitation team are professionals in various areas. Practice shows that rehabilitation teams are mainly interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinary rehabilitation teams generally include one or more physicians, nurse practitioners, and social workers. Nutritionists, speech, physical and occupational therapists, psychologists, and others usually participate on a case-by-case basis. Rehabilitation teams are designed to treat the whole person rather than simply the specific medical condition that may have led the person to seek treatment. Teams are concerned about an individual's living situation, independent functioning, nutritional status and collaboration with the patient's spouse. They also focus on health promotion and disease prevention. In this article the focus is on the specific specialist the nurse; the one who is one of the core specialists in rehabilitation team. Our interest is to define the exact team role which the nurse-specialist performs: a team member, a (team) case manager / a coordinator or a team administrator / care manager's? The research problem includes two questions: What are the dimensions of the specialist role in a rehabilitation team? What content does the management and administration characteristics of the specialist role in rehabilitation team include?" The term 'specialist' in research is adequate to the term 'nurse-specialist'. Research focus: the role of the (nurse) specialist in a team. Aim: to explain the role of the (nurse) specialist in a rehabilitation team by highlighting the managerial and administrational characteristics. Methods: data collection - questioning survey; data analysis descriptive and factorial analyses determined and explained. Results: (1) the dimensions of general specialist role in rehabilitation team; (2) the content of the nurse-specialist role in rehabilitation team concerning management and administration characteristics described.