Facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle complex problems in health care: report from an exploratory workshop

Complex problems in health care are complex issues that resist solution via traditional perspectives and are better tackled through interdisciplinary, systems-level approaches. Interdisciplinary approaches can be difficult to implement in assembled groups of health-care practitioners and researchers from diverse disciplines. We developed a set of four methods intended to explicitly facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration toward the end goal of solving complex problems in health care. This article describes the results of a workshop designed to explore these four methods: (1) deep dives, (2) an explicitly interdisciplinary framework of problem solving and problematizing, (3) exercises from improv theater, and (4) rapid sketching and visualization. Meeting attendees indicated that the workshop provided them with insights and new ways to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration. These methods show promise for bridging disciplinary differences, opening possibilities for new perspectives, and encouraging more creative and disciplinary-spanning approaches to complex problems in health care.