**2. Background: Changing positions between professions**

Andrew Abbott developed a theory about the system of professions [14] concerning how expertise is changing in working life. He addressed how different professions have interacted through the ages and how new professions challenge previous professions as society evolves. He says that with an ecological perspective on professions, one can see professions in relation to how they grow through niches. Professions transform and leave a niche, opening up for new professions. He believes that professional history is characterized by struggles to occupy different niches. Abbott describes that there have been disciplines where certain professions have had precedence and that this has often been linked to the legal level, from which professional policymakers have asked for advice. Furthermore, he says that the professions together form a system so that they replace each other as society evolves and that the professions move, invading areas that appear to be more appropriate. Further, he describes that there are three levels in particular that this unfolds. The first level is in the workplace, the second level is in society; in the culture and general perception of society, and finally at the third level, it is in relation to laws and administrative rules [14].

There is such a change in positions between different professions, but also internally within the health systems, there are changes of professions, shown in a study about the coordination between health service professions [15]. The study demonstrates how the health service in Norway often is characterized by an increasing fragmentation of specialization, emphasizing the importance of developing

#### *A Salutogenic Approach for Collaboration in Health and Technology DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.111866*

interactions and relationships between people that are characterized by equality, respectful mindset, and reciprocity knowledge. The study shows how four forms of collaboration can contribute to better health services, and these four are relational collaboration, coordinated task distribution, operationally closed collaboration, and fragmented task distribution. Relational cooperation is characterized by closeness and interconnection. Operationally closed cooperation is characterized by proximity and differentiation, where you work more separately. In a coordinated distribution of tasks, there is a long distance between the parties and participants cooperate from such distance with their own distinct tasks. Finally, fragmented task distribution is also characterized by both distance and differentiation, but here there are fewer meeting places both physically and digitally and little reciprocity knowledge. The conclusion of this study is that there are two types of interactions, ranging from fragmented task distribution to relational collaboration. The study shows that is not the conflict between understandings that is the main challenge for the interaction, but the lack of such a conflict. This is supported by literature on teamwork where stages of multidisciplinary team building in public health are characterized by Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing [16], where storming includes potential situations of conflict, such as discussions. Therefore, it can be important to not avoid conflicts but to strive for negotiations and discussions that highlight differences to achieve a real mutual understanding and reciprocity competence and respect for each other's work.

### **2.1 Co-innovation in higher education**

In higher education, there is a need to address changes in each education to adapt to a changing working life, and bring about overarching innovations [17]. An example of such innovation potential is described in a study concerning a transdisciplinary approach for co-innovation in social science and artificial intelligence [17]. It shows how there should be greater cooperation between international industrial cooperation and transnational university cooperation in larger sustainable ecosystems. This has synergies where, for example, machine learning and artificial intelligence can help make this synergy happen. The study refers to how the EU and China cooperation in technology and innovation has been tested. Their proposals for a transdisciplinary approach include both multiple disciplines and research fields, a transnational innovation ecosystem coupled with the civic engagement of universities. This is formed through international relations and various models of innovation where also institutional category and social network theory, social networks, analyses, and professional matching are important. Their long-term goal is to use artificial intelligence that can predict and propose potential and suitable universities and industry partners in international collaborations. This article is on a conceptual level, and the authors would like to discuss case studies with more practical examples.

#### **2.2 The course: interaction in health and technology**

Part of this objective is touched upon in this study, with a case study that includes a new university course in a new master's program in health and technology. The course name is "Interactions in health and technology." In order to achieve an interdisciplinary approach to topics concerning health and technology, it is valuable for students to discover common ground. A patient journey could serve as a common

starting point with an aim for health and the will to do something good for the patient as a common context. Additionally, a health-promoting perspective in a wide sense could be used and applied in this chapter. The course was made for students with different backgrounds in health-related education, including radiography, occupational therapy, biomedicine, biomedical laboratory science, artificial intelligence, and design. International, national health and welfare schemes were used as a starting point for the education of professionals with new interdisciplinary competence that can solve growing welfare problems, including the aging population and new user groups, in the health sector. Because new technology is constantly being used in the health sector, being able to understand the technology and being able to talk to and collaborate with different professionals in the field is important. This applies both to relationships with users and patients, but also between professionals. The rapid technological development in the health sector requires better and new types of interaction between different actors to promote better and more efficient health services.

In the course, it was therefore necessary that students learn about technological development, system design, and service innovation. Both public and private actors can contribute with experiences and cases, but also other areas are relevant, such as specialist health services, municipal health services, the business sector, and other interest organizations. Students will through different cases explore how new technology contributes to sustainable solutions in health and care services and think and reflect on ethical challenges that arise when new technology is adopted. Interdisciplinary collaboration competence in the development and implementation of new technology in health and social services was emphasized in the course. Some of the things the student should know are, for example, to explain key concepts related to technological development, system design, and service innovation. Some skills they will learn in the course are to be able to discuss and evaluate established and new relevant methods in research and creative development work in health technology, but also to be able to discuss health technology as socially responsible innovation and research, RRI [18]. An important general competence in the course was that the student can reflect on and fit their own professional background, identity, and competence in an interdisciplinary context. By being able to reflect on user perspectives and professional identity from traditional and new perspectives, the student can identify opportunities for innovation processes within their own field of study and propose new solutions, work methods, services, or product-based innovation projects. In this way, the student can contribute to a user orientation of system design through critical thinking. Further, the student should use a suitable conceptual framework that promotes interdisciplinary interaction and contributes to interdisciplinary teamwork. A qualitative content analysis of the professional fields in the course was studied from a salutogenic perspective.

#### **2.3 A salutogenic approach**

A health-promoting way of thinking was developed by Antonovsky [12], where his principle of salutogenesis is about the path to health rather than thinking about the path to disease. Antonovsky studied concentration camp survivors after World War II and asked them what made them able to create a meaningful life even after horrific experiences. He found that those who fared best had created a connectedness in their lives, a sense of coherence. This has become a well-known concept

that has formed the basis for many holistic and overarching approaches in the field of health [5, 13].

A sense of coherence is including what is meaningful and understandable, and the opportunity to influence and change a situation or one's own life situation, such as an illness. The more a person is able to understand and fit in a suitable way into what they are supposed to do, the more it contributes to an increased degree of understanding. This is also about how you manage to create a meaningful whole in what you do, and how you feel or experience that the process connected to an illness is meaningful. The more individuals manage to handle a situation or their illness, it will strengthen the person's own health development and experience of being able to survive even a difficult situation.

The research question in this study is therefore how to collaborate in health technology with a salutogenic approach. The study will show some cases of what sense of coherence means in different professions, and how these different professions can collaborate.
