Provider
Care managers and clinicians who are well-versed in one another’s approaches can alleviate some of the coordination and communication gaps that may arise when several providers are involved in care.
Barriers
Infrequent contact between team members can lead to a lack of clarity about patient progress and the types of treatments patients have already received.
Clinicians from multiple disciplines are often hired and managed by different departments with differing time demands, expectations for productivity, and administrative procedures; this can create difficulty in coordinating interdisciplinary meetings and establishing standard clinical practices.
Facilitators
One review identified that interdisciplinary care interventions that demonstrated an effect on pain outcomes included a care manager whose role could include baseline and follow-up assessments of patients and coordination of team case reviews.
Interdisciplinary team members tend to provide better team-based care when they are well-versed in the approaches of their colleagues in other disciplines, which can allow for better integration of their own recommendations and presentation of a “unified front” to patients.