Mobilizing the Potential of Interprofessional Collaboration

Health care professionals are nowadays called upon to work together. The numerous potential benefits of interprofessional collaboration are widely accepted in the health care sector (e.g., the improvement of care quality and performance, the reduction of costs, etc.). It is less obvious, however, how to induce truly interprofessional work that achieves the goals of high quality and efficient care. Indeed, it is not sufficient to simply bring different disciplines together. On the basis of the relevant literature and an ongoing research with interprofessional teams in the Canadian mental health care sector, I show two complementary and seemingly paradoxical ingredients that need to be understood for the effective implementation of interprofessional collaboration: (a) the establishment of boundaries that enable the different professional groups to function appropriately and (b) the maintenance of gray areas that allow flexibility in day to day adjustments. I argue that professionals need to find the right balance, which varies with the complexity of the specific clinical area of operation. Finally, I discuss the herewith associated implications, including the skills that health care managers must develop in order to support this paradoxical balance of collaboration.