Where Should Leaders Start When Designing Cross-Department Collaboration?
Where Should Leaders Start When Designing Cross-Department Collaboration?
A practical starting point for healthcare leaders thinking about system-level outcomes
Healthcare leaders are often asked to improve collaboration across departments while maintaining performance within their own teams.
They recognize the need for coordination. They see where gaps exist across professions and services. They experience the challenges that arise when work moves from one department to another without clear integration. The more difficult question is not whether collaboration is important. It is where to begin.
Designing interprofessional collaboration across departments does not start with a large initiative or a new committee. It begins by identifying where collaboration is already required within the system but not yet intentionally supported.
This is where leaders can take practical action.
Start with the Patient Journey
Interprofessional collaboration already exists within your system. It is just not always intentionally designed. Patients move across professions, departments, and services every day. These transitions are where collaboration is required, whether it is supported or not.
A practical place to begin is by mapping where the patient moves between professions. As a leader, you can start by asking:
Where do handoffs occur?
Where is information repeated, delayed, or lost?
Where does responsibility shift from one profession or department to another?
These transition points often reveal where collaboration is needed most. Rather than starting with a new initiative, start by examining one patient journey and identifying where coordination depends on individual effort instead of a shared process.
When leaders begin with the patient journey, collaboration becomes anchored in real work rather than abstract goals.
Look for Workflow Breakdowns, Not People Problems
Many collaboration challenges are described as communication issues. More often, they are workflow issues. When teams rely on emails, messages and informal conversations to coordinate care, the system is depending on individual effort rather than structured processes.
Interprofessional collaborative practice becomes more consistent when workflows support how teams actually need to work together. This is not about asking people to try harder. It is about designing systems that make collaboration easier to do. A practical next step is to examine how work is actually coordinated across roles.
As a leader, you can ask:
Where are teams relying on emails or messages to move work forward?
Where does communication vary depending on who is working that day?
Where are expectations unclear across professions?
These are often signs that a workflow has not been intentionally designed to support collaboration. Interprofessional collaborative practice becomes more consistent when workflows reflect how teams actually need to work together. This is not about asking people to try harder. It is about designing systems that make collaboration easier to do.
Identify Opportunities for Shared Work and Start Small
In many healthcare settings, work is organized in sequence. One profession completes their portion. The next profession continues the process. This structure can be effective in some situations. In others, it limits integration and keeps work dependent on handoffs rather than shared understanding. A practical next step is to identify where work could be shared rather than passed from one profession to another.
As a leader, you can begin by asking:
Where could work be co-designed instead of handed off?
Where could multiple professions contribute to a shared plan of care?
Where could visibility across roles reduce duplication or delay?
Leaders do not need to redesign the entire system at once. Start with one:
patient population
workflow
recurring breakdown
Design one shared process intentionally. Make roles visible. Clarify expectations across professions. Support communication within the workflow, not outside of it. Then expand. Small, intentional design decisions often produce meaningful changes in how teams work together.
Seeing the System Differently
In a recent article, I shared that systems produce the outcomes they are designed to produce. When collaboration is not intentionally designed, variation is expected. When it is structured and supported, coordination becomes more consistent.
Department leadership remains essential. System-level results require leaders to see beyond their own boundaries and begin designing how work connects across them.
If you are newer to interprofessional education or interprofessional collaborative practice, you may find it helpful to explore the earlier articles in this series:
What Is Interprofessional Education (IPE)?
What Is Interprofessional Collaborative Practice (IPCP)?
Together, these concepts provide a foundation for understanding how collaboration can be intentionally developed and sustained.
Ready to Strengthen Collaboration in Your System?
If you are accountable for system-level outcomes but were never trained to design interprofessional collaboration, this is where the work begins.
You can take the next step by:
Review 6 Conversations that Prepare Teams for System-Level Work
Work with me one-to-one to design collaboration that is supported by structure, not personal effort
Collaborate for Health equips department-level healthcare leaders with the skills to structure cross-department and interprofessional collaboration that produces system-level results and positions them for advancement.
Let’s collaborate for health. We are better together.
Visit: collaborateforhealth.com
