Concept of interprofessional practice building momentum in Canadian healthcare
Upcoming events teach communication and collaboration among healthcare providers
Thursday November 13, 2008 -- Jason Thompson
By working together and communicating in a collaborative fashion, Dr. Patty Solomon, director of the Program for Interprofessional Practice, Education & Research (PIPER) at McMaster University, says interprofessional teams of healthcare workers can provide more effective and efficient patient care.

“The idea (of interprofessional practice) has recently become more popular because both the federal government and the Ontario government have put a lot of money into these initiatives thinking that it is very important for new learners and existing clinicians to be able to practice together collaboratively and that patient care will be much better if they do practice collaboratively.”

Solomon says many of the errors in healthcare that compromise staff and patient safety are the result of miscommunications or misunderstandings of people’s roles in the healthcare environment.

“If people have a better understanding and collaborate together and communicate better there is just less propensity for healthcare error,” she says. “If (healthcare professionals) work together as collaborative teams they are also going to have greater job satisfaction and some of the research shows that there is better recruitment and retention of health professionals as well.”

In response to the growing movement towards interprofessional practice, McMaster has taken a leadership role by establishing PIPER as a full-time program at the university in December 2007.

PIPER teaches health-service providers how to effectively work together through communication skills labs and the practice of appreciative inquiry — a constructive approach to organizational development that builds on strengths and what's working.

“People have a better understanding of each other’s roles and each other’s values and it can open up different kinds of communication and dialogue between healthcare professionals,” she says.

The approach can also create a more efficient use of resources, when healthcare workers learn how to effectively work together.

There is a pair of events on the horizon for anyone interested in learning about interprofessional practice.

The first is a workshop scheduled for Dec. 2 — 3 in Toronto and is hosted by the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation. Click here for more information.

A second event has been scheduled for Jan. 18 — 20 when the Ontario Interprofessional Health collaborative holds its Interprofessional Education Ontario 2009 conference. Click here for more information.

Information on interprofessional practice is also available online.

— With files from Camille Jensen

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