3 Critical Elements of Clinical Collaboration

A colleague recently wrote to me and asked me my definition of “collaboration”.

It doesn’t mean that care providers need to hug each other and sing Kumbaya. Ideally, care providers will like each other, but that’s not foundational.

I see 3 critical elements to clinical collaboration:

Clinical collaboration entails explicit agreement among care providers to:

1) Define the membership of the care team for each patient. Of course, this should include the patient and could include specialists, family caregivers, and ancillary care providers.

2) Develop and implement a shared patient care plan.

3) Coordinate ongoing shared information and workflow among team members.

Am I missing anything?

How’s the US healthcare system doing on this definition? With notable exceptions, I’d say zero for three for the most part.