Here's how you can optimize healthcare outcomes through interdisciplinary collaboration.

Clear Roles Reduce Confusion: When everyone on the care team understands their specific roles and responsibilities, it reduces confusion and duplication of efforts. Improves Communication: A clear understanding of roles facilitates smoother communication and collaboration among team members. Promotes Shared Goals: By outlining each team member's role in achieving the patient's overall care goals, it fosters a sense of shared responsibility and accountability.

The team also includes the patient and their role in self care and self understanding. First rule is to always listen to and support the patient.

In my experience, one key to successful collaboration is respectful, honest, open communication. Also, remembering that each are advocating for the patient.

As a head and neck cancer and skull base surgeon, I know firsthand the critical importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in optimising healthcare outcomes. These fields require simultaneous teams working, so roles need to be defined beforehand. We strategise meticulously on how the surgery will proceed, determining when the plastic surgeon, neurosurgeon, and other specialists need to step in. Every team member, regardless of experience, must have an open mind to receive feedback during and after the procedure, especially when faced with undesired outcomes. This openness fosters continuous improvement. Trust is the foundation that makes all of this possible, allowing us to work seamlessly together.

To have an effective plan of care, each brings to the table an aspect of the patient's care and well-being that will aid in meeting their needs and improve outcomes.

There has to be more referral between not only physician and their specialties, also between dentists and physicians, but this has to be more extended. The hole healthcare system has to be communicated: Dentist with physician, nutritionist, psychologist, bidirectional and multiple ways. As health has to be taken in a more holistic way, not in silos or fragmented portions. Telehealth could be a wonderful complementary help on this, when it started to be use, in a wise way and not with the old idea, that asking in between colleagues it means that you don't know, sometimes this is like an internal organizational culture believe, that the one that ask most is the one that knows less. Huge mistake.

we should have coined strategic plans for Diagnosis, management, and prevention of the disease, reducing adverse drug reactions, preventing emergency hospitalizations, decreasing morbidity and mortality rates, and optimizing medication dosages.

Sharing best practices and knowledge sharing sessions are key for the team to learn and constantly improv e. We had regularly/quarterly learning sessions which helped our team members to learn from examples from the other team members.

Optimizing healthcare outcomes as an oncology surgeon through interdisciplinary collaboration involves integrating specialized surgical expertise with insights from oncologists, radiologists, pathologists, and other specialists. This collaboration tailors treatment plans, enhances preoperative assessments, ensures precise surgical interventions, and improves postoperative care. Active participation in tumor boards and research refines strategies, expands treatment options, and promotes patient-centered care, ultimately achieving optimal outcomes in cancer treatment.

Healthcare is highly tribal. Trust is lacking due to not understanding the purpose and function of other departments/disciplines. It is far too easy to create an "us" versus "them" environment, particularly when hospital resources are fiercely guarded by management. Pitting departments in a hospital against each other for a limited amount of resources can contribute to this mistrust. Honestly, I don't know how you can help people gain trust, but education is the likely starting point with the goal of empathy towards those who perform different tasks key to success.

The management must allow considerable flexibility to the team members. Whether it be a working from home or alternate working hours or personal-love days etc. Build trust, ensure team is able to handle complex and demanding situations while working at any location and then promote the culture throughout.

Healthcare should be the most flexible industry in the United States, but often it is not. Policies and procedures may prevent flexibility, confining roles and expertise to specific domains/territories within the larger healthcare system. This is where interdisciplinary collaboration and education are key to understanding where departments can be more flexible and how they can perform more efficiently in delivering patient care.

Feedbacks are one of the most commonly used and effective tool to ensure constant improvement within an organization and its functions. Consider someone taking extra time to write a feedback, take it objectively and make a log book of all feedbacks. Bring your teammates on the table to address those feedbacks and ensure there is an action plan addressing those feedbacks. I mean how simple it is to practice!

I highly recommend the book "Thanks for the Feedback" as an excellent starting point for learning to communicate with others. Feedback should be a continuing process, but many need more time to provide it, often complicating issues and adding more emotion. The sad truth is that only some people know how to give feedback, and when they do offer it, it comes across in the wrong tone and may lead to unnecessary conflict.

Evaluating patient outcomes on a regular basis is crucial for measuring the effectiveness of interdisciplinary collaboration. By analyzing how the team's combined efforts have impacted key metrics such as patient recovery times, satisfaction levels, and overall health, healthcare providers can gain valuable insights into their performance. This evaluation not only identifies areas that need improvement but also highlights successful strategies that can be replicated in the future. Continuous assessment ensures that the healthcare team remains focused on delivering the highest quality of care. It fosters an environment of ongoing learning and adaptation, where team members are constantly looking for ways to enhance healthcare outcomes.

There are outcomes and then there is patient perspective. Your outcomes might look good in numbers but may not reflect how the patient EXPERIENCED their care. Ultimately, we are here to deliver on what patients see as THEIR priority. We need to become better at evaluating this side of our care.

Auditing and then bringing the data to the table in a simple manner in which others can identify with. Recently, in auditing avoidable delays, one of the highest areas included delays due to testing not being available on the weekends and patients LOS bein excessive. To have a better visual of the effect it has on revenue, I gave examples and the daily dollar amount it cost to keep them needlessly. I think it is necessary to educate on the "why" we want to improve numbers, not just for numbers sake.

Regularly evaluating patient outcomes is important. Assessing recovery time, patient satisfaction, and overall health, helps to identify effective strategies and areas needing improvement. Eventually, this contributes to delivery of high quality care that is adapted to the patient's needs. After critical incidents like code blue scenarios, holding meetings to evaluate team dynamics and response can be particularly insightful. This allows the interdisciplinary team to reflect on their coordination and decision-making during emergencies, leading to improved patient care.

We cannot be all things to all people but we can certainly always improve and grow in our care of others and how we work together for the same purposes and outcomes.

Co creation, co production is part of the new model in quality in healthcare. This means, that sometimes mistakes can happen because the one that is down of the hierarchy is not able to speak, to correct the one that is up. This led to huge mistakes. That is why a good Lider nowadays, must work horizontal and integrates in the same level, with clear direct channel of communication.