In recent years, there has been an increasing need for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary as well as multiprofessional and interprofessional perspectives on professional work (Bleakley, Boyden, Hobbs, Walsh, & Allard, 2006). In health care, interprofessional practice means that patient care is a joint effort by professionals, whose tasks, interaction and collaboration need to be synchronized (Baker, Day, & Salas, 2006).
Interprofessional collaboration has also been characterized as shared aims, interdependence, a collegial and equal relationship between the participants and shared decision-making procedures (D’Amour, Ferrada-Videla, San Martín-Rodriquez, & Beaulieu, 2005; San Martín-Rodriguez, Beaulieu, D’Amour, & Ferrada-Videla, 2005).
The development of interprofessional practice involves examining work and the object of work as a whole, integrating competence and expertise from various areas in a work community or a team (Housley, 2003). For this reason, interprofessionalism has also been called collegial or shared expertise.
Owing to the increasing complexity of health care functions and practice, interprofessional collaboration may enhance quality of care and patient safety (Baker et al., 2006) and patient-based and comprehensive care (McCallin, 2001; D’Amour et al., 2005; Baker et al., 2006). The aim has also been to strengthen the effectiveness of care by developing interprofessional practices (D’Amour et al., 2005). Aside from having been offered as a remedy for practical problems in health care, interprofessional collaboration and boundary crossing between professions have also
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