Healthcare is experiencing two countervailing pressures: to increase efficiency and be more responsive to consumer demands. Healthcare organizations often create new work arrangements, including “lay healthcare” roles, to respond to these pressures. Using longitudinal qualitative data, this article analyzes how one set of new lay healthcare workers attempted to construct a workplace identity, sell their value to existing professional workers, and navigate the precarious conditions of the new role. The authors find that workers in these new roles faced immense challenges stemming from their positions as “risk absorbers,” which ultimately harmed workers and reduced the efficacy of the new role.

医疗保健正面临两个抵消压力：提高效率和对消费者需求做出更快速的响应。医疗保健组织通常会创建新的工作安排，包括“非专业医疗保健”角色，以应对这些压力。本文使用纵向定性数据，分析了一组新的医疗保健工作者如何尝试建立工作场所身份，将其价值出售给现有的专业工作者，以及如何应对新职位不稳定的情况。作者发现，担任这些新角色的工人面临着巨大的挑战，这源于他们作为“风险吸收者”的地位，这最终损害了工人并降低了新角色的效力。