Key Success Factors
and Pitfalls
Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Primary Care Toolkit for Family Physicians
The College of Family Physicians of Canada
Transition to Interdisciplinary Collaboration
The development of interdisciplinary collaboration requires time and patience for family physicians, other specialist physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, social workers, psychologists, pharmacists and other health providers, even those who are currently non-regulated, to work comfortably in this new dynamic. Not only do providers need to learn to coexist and mutually support each other in primary care models embracing interdisciplinary collaboration but they also need to learn how to deal with the barriers that have existed within and between professions over many years throughout the evolution of healthcare.
Interdisciplinary collaboration is not for every family physician. Membership on teams should be voluntary, not compulsory as a hammer to implement system change that has not been negotiated. Team development is not equivalent to adding a "free " health human resource. On the other hand, team development is far from new.