Efforts to foster more rapid adoption have focused mainly on structurally-based barriers to interprofessional practice or educational deficiencies of practitioners. While these are laudable goals and have been demonstrated to foster a variety of positive outcomes,, ,, ] healthcare practice on the ground has been slow to evolve toward an interprofessional ideal. At its best, interprofessional practice entails seamless communication across disciplinary boundaries, broad participation in and shared responsibility for healthcare decision-making among multiple professions, and high quality team-based practice. There has been concurrent interest in interprofessional education, with articulation of core competencies by several international groups.
Over the last two decades, interprofessional collaborative practice has been increasingly embraced as an ideal model for the delivery of safe, high quality, and patient-centered healthcare.
