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Through purposeful learning guided by the interprofessional collaborative practice competencies, health professionals will acquire needed knowledge and skills to work together in environments built on mutual respect and shared values, knowledge of each other's roles and responsibilities, and effective communication and teamwork processes. The establishment of these competencies for health professionals provides a transformative direction for improving the health care system.

This article describes the emergence of the American Interprofessional Health Collaborative to rebuild capacity for interprofessional education and care in the U.S. through an inclusive, evidence-based and open exchange of information and resources. Also described are the historical context and the national and international climate for its emergence.

After presenting a theory of team development, we propose that the informal role structure of a team is dependent upon the degree of anomie in the team culture, and we provide measures of anomie and informal roles that can be used in field settings. Then we test hypotheses on a national sample of 111 interdisciplinary health care teams in geriatrics in US Veterans Affairs medical centers. We find evidence that as teams develop from early to later stages, the interpersonal behavior of members becomes less differentiated on three dimensions: prominence, sociability, and task-orientation.

At the present time when interprofessional collaboration in practice is reaching new levels of interest related to health care system changes in both the UK and the US, a key question being raised is: What are the outcomes and costs of interprofessional collaborative models of care?

The current research knowledge base for end-of-life decision making in adult intensive care units is reviewed. Proposals for future research needs and for practice are described.

Please note: The full text of this article is only available to those with subscription access to the journal Nursing Outlook. Contact your institutional library or the publisher for details.

The authors describe the development and psychometric testing across three study phases of an Attitudes Toward Health Care Teams Scale. The measure contains two subscales: Quality of Care/Process (14 items) and Physician Centrality (6 items). The Quality of Care/Process subscale measures team members' perceptions of the quality of care delivered by health care teams and the quality of teamwork to accomplish this. The Physician Centrality subscale measures team members' attitudes toward physicians' authority in teams and their control over information about patients.

This article provides an overview of major interprofessional health care, education and research initiatives in the USA in the past fifty years, beginning with a short introduction that places the discussion into a conceptual and historical perspective and ending with some considerations for the future of interprofessional care in the USA.

The team approach to geriatric care does not automatically result in appropriate decision making with regard to elderly patients with multiple chronic problems and complicated, overlapping needs. In this article, Janis's (1972, 1982) group‐think theory and tests of facets of the theory are examined. A modified theory is then applied to geriatric health care teams using a case scenario. Suggestions for minimizing the conditions that lead to groupthink and the resultant poor decisions are made.

Interaction during four to seven meetings of four interdisciplinary health care teams was videotaped and coded for amount of interaction initiated and received by doctor, nurses, and nutritionists in each team. Process categories such as “asks opinion,” “gives information,” and “gives order,” were also coded for each participant in each meeting. A model of collegial interaction was developed, and the teams were compared with the model.

Anderson ES, Thorpe, LN. (2014). Students improve patient care and prepare for professional practice: an  interprofessional community-based study. Medical Teacher. 36(6): 495–504.

Background: We report on an education model, which enables students to contribute to practice while experiencing the realities of complex team-working in the community.

Aims: The study considers how interprofessional learning impacts on patient care and service delivery.