In an effort to break down the traditionally linear hospital structure of assembly-line health care, St. Joseph's Health Centre is empowering health professionals to take on more responsibility and collaborate. This strategy has the direct result of a more efficient and improved patient experience and is in line with St. Joseph's vision of valuing patients above all else.

Teamwork is crucial to the success of a community hospital. In that spirit, point-of-care teams at St. Joseph's have been taking part in Interprofessional Practice (IPP) workshops, complete with an electric maze to loosen inhibitions. The groups are coached to use their experience and diversity to solve problems together.

"We've had a lot of feedback that St. Joseph's has taken a leadership role in interprofessional practice. I've had calls from across the country about what we're doing," said Keith Adamson, Manager, Interprofessional Practice.

What they're doing is learning how to structure a successful intervention to increase interprofessional collaborative team functioning, identify elements of organizational support necessary for the implementation and sustainability of interprofessional practice and navigate through the facilitators and barriers to move forward.

The interprofessional practice service is supporting, encouraging and driving interprofessional collaboration at the health centre. At the root of the IPP strategy is education. This includes providing workshops, enhancing professional development and forging strategic alliances with university and community partners.

Helping to lead the philosophical change at St. Joseph's is the Interprofessional Practice Advisory Committee (IPAC), whose role is to provide clinicians with the ability to create IPP, foster discussion and create a working environment that's conducive to cooperation, to take advantage of all the overlapping scopes of practice. IPAC also works collaboratively with the medical advisory committee to create interprofessional standards of care, and creates opportunities for various health professionals to work to their full scopes of practice.

In the future, "we're hoping to publish extensively, to transfer our knowledge to the wider health-care system," explained Adamson.

This falls perfectly in line with the spirit of cooperation and community fostered by IPP and St. Joseph's Health Centre as a whole. After all, one of St. Joseph's success factors is the creation of a culture of inquiry and innovation. With interprofessional collaboration, they are doing just that.

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Page last updated: April 30, 2010