Attitudes Towards Interprofessional Collaboration: How Team Dynamic Affects Patient Care in Outpatient Palliative Care-A Provider ViewPoint

Palliative care has been proven to be beneficial for patients with complex and chronic illness yet there is limited research on the ideal way to deliver these services in the outpatient setting. The purpose of this capstone project was to determine how health professionals feel their interprofessional collaboration and dynamic ultimately affect the care provided by a team. Using The Jefferson Scale of Interprofessional Collaboration JeffSTATIC) in combination with open-ended questions, two outpatient palliative care teams were evaluated and compared to determine differences amongst team experiences and the care they felt was delivered by their team. JeffSTATIC has a maximum score of 140 with higher scores indicating a more positive attitude towards interprofessional collaboration. Team B had a collective JeffSTATIC score of 131.6 while Team A had a score of 128.9 indicating Team B more positively views interprofessional collaboration. The free response interviews corroborated this statistical data. Team B reported more favorable team dynamics than Team A and also believed patients received better care due to their collaborative teamwork. Members felt clinic B to be open and collaborative, both qualities deemed as desirable while working intercollaboratively. Team members in both clinics reported barriers to cohesive interprofessional care such as imbalance of power, poor communication, and spatial constraints. In the future, there must be interventions and further training in order to enhance the collaboration amongst team members. As outpatient palliative care becomes more prevalent, these teams will need to adapt and implement changes to best address the complex needs of oncology patients. Presentation: 16:5