Identifying knowledge sharing barriers in interprofessional healthcare collaboration of Traditional and Western Medicine in China

This paper reports a research project purposed at identifying knowledge sharing (KS) barriers in the collaboration and complementary practices of healthcare professionals from disciplines of Western Medicine (WM) and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in Chinese healthcare organisations. Grounded Theory is adopted as the overarching methodology to investigate a public hospital in the province of Hubei in central China. Overall, forty-nine semistructured interviews were exercised and analysed. Results indicate that KS was impeded by the dissonance of philosophical stances employed by respective professional groups. This barrier was not only resulted by insufficient interprofessional education in the Chinese healthcare education and by a lack of hospital professional training schemes, but also framed by the hospital management strategies and influenced by the general political, social, economical environments. Conclusions arrive at providing suggestions to mitigate identified KS barriers. This paper is of interests to KS researchers, particularly for those who are interested in KS implementation in healthcare sectors and in interprofessional collaboration of healthcare professionals from heterogeneous backgrounds. This paper is also of interest to healthcare managers and politicians in promoting interprofessional collaboration and a synergy of healthcare professional teams.