Developing and Sustaining Interprofessional Health Care: Optimizing patient, organizational and system outcomes

Published: December 2013
Available in English, French
Health system,  Healthy work environment (HWE)

Purpose and scope

The purpose of this best practice guideline (BPG) is to foster healthy work environments. The focus in developing this guideline was identifying attributes of interprofessional care that will optimize quality outcomes for patients/ clients, providers, teams, the organization…

The purpose of this best practice guideline (BPG) is to foster healthy work environments. The focus in developing this guideline was identifying attributes of interprofessional care that will optimize quality outcomes for patients/ clients, providers, teams, the organization and the system.

This guideline identifies best practices to enable, enhance and sustain teamwork and interprofessional collaboration, and to enhance positive outcomes for patients/clients, systems and organizations. It is based on the best available evidence; where evidence was limited, the recommendations were based on the consensus of expert opinion.
The target audience includes nurses and health-care professionals in all roles and practice settings, including: 
•    interprofessional team members 
•    non-nursing administrators at the unit, organizational and system level
•    clinical nurses
•    students
•    educators
•    researchers
•    policy makers and governments
•    professional organizations
•    employers
•    labour groups 
•    federal, provincial and territorial standard-setting bodies

Reference

Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (2013). Developing and Sustaining Interprofessional Health Care: Optimizing patients/clients, organizational, and system outcomes. Toronto, Canada: Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario.

Recommendations

Do you want to learn about and implement the most- up-to-date evidence-based recommendations on this topic with your colleagues? Download and share the full best practice guideline (BPG), Developing and Sustaining Interprofessional Health Care: Optimizing patient, organizational and system outcomes.
See below for a snapshot of the recommendations from this BPG. We strongly suggest you review the full BPG before implementing the recommendations and good practice statements. The BPG also includes further resources to support implementation and evaluation.  

Disclaimer: These guidelines are not binding for nurses, other health providers or the organizations that employ them. The use of these guidelines should be flexible and based on individual needs and local circumstances. They constitute neither a liability nor discharge from liability. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the contents at the time of publication, neither the authors nor the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) gives any guarantee as to the accuracy of the information contained in them or accepts any liability with respect to loss, damage, injury or expense arising from any such errors or omission in the contents of this work.

Revision status

Current edition published: December 2013

Contact

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