Building High Performing Interprofessional Collaborative Practice Teams for Enhancing Population Health and Care Transitions

Background:

Collaboration and teamwork are important factors that contribute to better patient and organizational outcomes. High reliability organizations depend on collaboration and teamwork to achieve patient care quality and safety. Increasingly interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) models are emerging to facilitate collaboration and teamwork across the healthcare continuum. Many health care providers, however, have not received formal training to practice effectively within IPCP care delivery models suggesting the need to cultivate interprofessional competencies that emphasize collaboration and teamwork.

Purpose:

This purpose of this presentation is to discuss the characteristics of high performing teams and to introduce performance measurement approaches used to deploy targeted strategies for training individuals in IPCP and building high performing teams.

Methods:

Using their experience in implementing an innovative IPCP model to improve health outcomes for an underserved patient population as part of an academic-practice partnership in the southeastern United States, the authors share evidence-based strategies used to develop high performing teams within a high reliability organization. Integrating Tuckman’s stages of team development and using the Collaborative Practice Assessment Tool, the authors discuss ways to monitor team performance to align strategies with behaviors for achieving a high performing team competent in IPCP and adept at collaboration and teamwork.

Findings:

Three years of project data with the IPCP model reflect positive team performance outcomes related to health care professional collaboration and teamwork, which contributed to patients reporting enhanced access to care, exceptional patient experiences, improved physical and mental health outcomes, reduced hospital readmissions, and decreased cost of care.

Conclusions/Implications:

An innovative IPCP model of care is an effective approach to improve health outcomes and care transitions in underserved patients, however, it may not be fully successful if health care professionals practicing within the model are not capable of collaboration and teamwork. Understanding the nuances of team formation and developmental stages is crucial for better performance measurement that helps deploy targeted strategies for building high performing teams.