title: Creating a Culture for Interdisciplinary Collaborative Professional Practice.
abstract: The future of the health system is dependent on health professionals re-tooling the way we practice together. No longer can a multi-disciplinary model support the complex health needs of many clients nor can any one-health profession have all the knowledge needed to provide total patient-centred care. However, our current education and health systems are structured around a multidisciplinary model of practice with physicians or nurse practitioners as decision-makers and rarely are clients included in care planning. True interdisciplinary practice is defined as a partnership between a team of health professionals and a client in a participatory, collaborative and coordinated approach to shared decision-making around health issues, requires a revamping of how future health professionals are educated and how the system can accommodate shared decision-making. A client-centered collaborative professional practice model is proposed in this paper as a means for fostering and facilitating the culture for this change.
authors.affiliation: a School of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences The University of Western Ontario.
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Orchard
authors.affiliation: b Centre for Collaborative Health Professional Education, Faculty of Medicine Memorial University of Newfoundland.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Curran
authors.affiliation: c Faculty of Social Sciences The University of Western Ontario.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kabene
keywords: change; client-centered; collaboration; culture; interdisciplinary practice