Collegial relationships among the various disciplines are necessary for several reasons:

• Clinical and technological advances are driving the need for health care providers to offer more complex procedures (e.g., peripheral vascular procedures) and treatment protocols that cross specialty lines.
  
• Comprehensive patient care requires providers call upon the expertise of multiple specialties.
  
• Emphasis on the patient and consumer perspective requires focus across multiple disciplines, settings (inpatient versus outpatient), and levels of care.
  

Ultimately, if the market is demanding an interdisciplinary approach to providing comprehensive, quality patient care, health care providers will need to find the right formula to meet these expectations. Health care managers agree that collaboration and communication among physicians are key components of leading interdisciplinary centers. Strategies used by managers of interdisciplinary centers vary based on organizational culture, market dynamics, and personalities of leadership. According to these managers, the following strategies have worked toward building more successful relationships among providers.

• Build a larger pool of patients. Expanding the number of patients served, through increasing scope of services, offering more complex care, marketing programs and physicians, and other activities, grows the patient pool and allows providers to share a portion of a larger pie.
• Develop standards of practice. Establishing firm standards of practice that specify training and experience required to perform certain types of procedures can help alleviate battles for patients.
• Create a single financial structure. Setting up a revenue/cost center specific to the interdisciplinary program may encourage physicians to use all the resources and specialists within the program.
• Build bridges through research. Participation in common research activities involving multiple disciplines can build rapport, trust, and respect among providers.
• Develop a physician champion role. A physician who rises to a leadership position through consensus can facilitate collaboration, provide direction, and aggressively champion the interdisciplinary approach. The individual must be willing to face their colleagues head-on when making unpopular decisions or when challenging the status quo.
• Create an advisory board. An on-going advisory board that includes providers from each of the disciplines helps to address conflicts as they arise, oversee the management of the product line, and review practice standards.

A combination of these strategies is likely to provide the most appropriate approach for achieving successful interdisciplinary relationships. Attempting to overcome turf battles and conflicts among providers is a difficult process that may take several years, or a changing of the guard, to accomplish. But the effort is worthwhile because successful relationships facilitate quality patient care, promote efficiency, allow for shared funding for research, and contribute to overall program growth.

For more information on fostering interdisciplinary physician relationships, contact Jennifer Jones Etkin or Craig Holm, or call 215-636-3500.