For years, health professionals were educated in profession-specific programs with little opportunity to engage in interprofessional collaboration. Globally, great effort is placed on interprofessional education (IPE) where two or more health professionals learn with, from, and about each other for better health and health outcomes (Gilbert et al., 2010; WHO, 2010), emphasizing team-based care and service (CIHC, 2024). Importantly, the person/family accessing/receiving care or services is an integral team member. Click below to review various aspects of team communication.

Importance of Team Communication

• Providers-to-patient/client: To participate in their care decisions, patients/clients/family members need to understand complex information and team recommendations;
• Provider-to-provider: Shared understanding of perspectives and approaches requires explanations of varying terminology, jargon, acronyms used in each profession;
• Team-to-team: Patient/client transitions and hand-offs require excellent communication of information across teams, units, organizations, and sectors.

Quality and Improvement

A 21st century hallmark publication entitled Crossing the Quality Chasm (Institute of Medicine, 2001) reported on the need for improvement of patient safety, care effectiveness, and quality of care. The report calls for:

• A future where clinicians “understand the advantage of high levels of cooperation, coordination and standardization to guarantee excellence, continuity, and reliability”;
• A focus on good communication among members of a team, using all the expertise and knowledge of team members.

Facilitators and Barriers to Team Communication

Lui et al. (2021) explored facilitators and barriers to interprofessional communication in an acute care setting. The central theme identified was that of accessibility—both physical and psychological. Subthemes presented as both facilitators and barriers to accessibility and communication. The subthemes were:

• Social norms
• Hierarchy
• Cognitive bias
• Relationships

Ultimately, ineffective communication leads to poor patient outcomes.

Ineffective Communication

Click the play button below to watch the brief video of an example of poor interprofessional communication (Trentham et al., 2010):

In the video, a team member eventually sighs, “Let’s SBAR this.”

As you watch the vignette consider the two prompts:

• What did you observe about how the team communicated?
• What do you think they needed to do in the meeting to better communicate—the process and the outcome?

Communication is a Process

Communication is a process involving:

• Sharing information
• Non-judgmental active listening
• Using common language
• Checking for understanding
• Addressing differences of opinion
• Providing and responding to feedback
• Self-reflecting