Exploring Best Practices in Interprofessional Collaboration to Improve Patient Care
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation issued a report profiling the experiences of more than 20 hospitals and community health centers that utilize interprofessional collaboration to achieve better patient outcomes, including PCHC. The report, Lessons From the Field: Promising Interprofessional Collaboration Practices, helps health care entities assess the potential benefits of interprofessional collaboration and offers a road map to implementing the approach.
Leaders from Penobscot Community Health Care (PCHC) were interviewed for the report about their experience with interprofessional collaboration, as PCHC hosts several residency programs, including in Pharmacy Practice and Administration, as well as General Practice Dental. As a teaching health center, PCHC supports the placement and training of over 300 physician, physician assistant, dental, pharmacy, nurse practitioner, counseling, physical therapy, and other students for internships and field education per year.
The report details the experiences of health care organizations in advancing cooperation among physicians, nurses, nutritionists, psychologists, and other appropriate health professionals, from the planning stages through various phases of a patient’s treatment. The patient and the patient’s family are also considered part of the treatment team.
The report also explores a variety of approaches to establishing an institutional culture that embraces interprofessional collaboration. These include demonstrating leadership commitment to collaboration among the various professions as an organizational priority, and using shared language and tools to promote effective communication across disciplines. A leader at one of the participating health care organizations described in the paper, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, stated, “Interprofessional collaboration requires leaving your comfort zone. It pushes you to break down silos and to see yourself as part of a whole.”
“These organizations demonstrate that interprofessional collaboration is not only viable, but that it works well for both the patient and the team caring for the patient,” said RWJF President and CEO Risa Lavizzo-Mourey. “We can learn a great deal from the organizations that are breaking the old mold and that are employing practices that can help us to achieve a Culture of Health.”
The report distills the principles and practices that these collaborative organizations use every day in their treatment of patients. Other health care organizations wishing to emulate this model can look to the report for practical tips, inspiration, and methods that have worked for others.