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Interprofessional Collaboration: Working Together to Provide Quality Care

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The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) is committed to supporting and promoting interprofessional collaboration to improve both the quality of and access to health care in Ontario.

Interprofessional collaboration means approaching patient care from a multidisciplinary, team-based perspective, rather than through exclusive domains of practice. At its core, interprofessional collaboration involves recognizing and valuing the individual roles and contributions of all health-care professionals and fostering relationships that are built on trust and mutual respect. Among other things, working collaboratively involves communicating and exchanging information effectively; encouraging openness and transparency; working together to solve complex problems; developing guidelines and policies that are reflective of each professional’s scope of practice; cultivating positive relationships at the institutional level; and sharing decision-making, where appropriate and in the patient’s best interest.

Working in collaboration maximizes and utilizes the skills of each contributing health-care professional, which leads to a stronger and more connected health-care system that reduces inefficiencies, increases access to care, and ultimately improves patient outcomes.1

CPSO strongly believes that physicians deliver the highest quality of care when working effectively with health-care professionals from different disciplines, including those they work with most, such as midwives, pharmacists, and nurses of all classes. Physicians have a responsibility to collaborate with all health-care professionals, and CPSO is committed to serving the public interest by working with other regulators to support and promote these relationships.

Endnotes

1. WHO, HRH, HPN. Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education & Collaborative Practice. Geneva: WHO 2010. Available at: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/70185/WHO_HRH_HPN_10.3_eng.pdf;jsessionid=631ABD47231CEF32BE7441F096D62BB8?sequence=1 Accessed December 8, 2020.