An interprofessional team is intentionally designed where professions are shaping the work collaboratively. Shared decision-making, shared accountability, and a shared relationship with the patient and family as active participants.
Most healthcare leaders are familiar with the word interprofessional. Fewer have been shown the meaningful differences between a multidisciplinary project, an interdisciplinary project, and an interprofessional one.
We vaccinate to prevent disease. We manage blood pressure to prevent stroke. We intervene early to avoid complications. We do not wait for harm and then decide what to do. However, when it comes to how our teams function, we do exactly that.
We have decades of evidence in the science of teamwork, communication and interprofessional collaboration.