This article in nurse.com looks at the value of collaboratively working in an interdisciplinary practice to improve outcomes and healthcare processes.
One example: Blythedale Children’s Hospital, in Valhalla, N.Y., which has been moving toward greater interdisciplinary practice since 2011, when it began interdisciplinary training in therapeutic crisis intervention. It has continued the training for new hires, with annual recertification for all staff. The hospital also created an interdisciplinary work group to improve communication.
Success of the program is being attributed to the hospital’s rather small size, and thus fewer layers of clinicians and bureaucracy, and to enthusiastic support from senior administrators and frontline staff.
Another example of collaboration is at Boca Raton (Fla.) Regional Hospital, which is starting an interdisciplinary-practice project, in collaboration with Florida Atlantic University’s Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, both in Boca Raton.
“We’re trying to build inter-professional collaborative competencies and practices,” said Terry Eggenberger, R.N., an assistant professor at the FAU College of Nursing, told nurse.com.
The news site reported that the project, “Aligning Education and Practice to Support Interprofessional Collaboration, with funding from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation in New York, aims to align academic and healthcare delivery to support interprofessional collaboration. Three units at BRRH will participate in the pilot, which focuses on the discharge process. ”
