Persistent isolationist or collaborator? The nurse's role in interprofessional collaborative practice.

AIM: The present study explores current understanding about interprofessional collaborative client-centred practice and nursing's role in this form of care delivery.

BACKGROUND: A profession-only focus on nursing practice has been challenged at professional, national governmental and World Health Organization levels stressing for more interprofessional patient-centred collaborative teamwork.

EVALUATION: Moving to patient-centred collaborative practice is fraught with barriers. Enablers can result in building trust, power sharing and shared decision-making. Changing current workplace environments requires institutional commitments to support collaborative team development.

KEY ISSUE(S): Nurses can become collaborative members of teams through: (1) re-socialize; (2) understanding and articulating nurses roles, knowledge and skills to others; (3) other health providers sharing the same to nurses; (4) identifying where shared roles, knowledge and skills exist; and (5) learning to work in collaborative teams. Nurses must address some fundamental issues about practice that negate collaboration and patient-centred care.

CONCLUSIONS: All professionals, including nurses, must move away from a service-oriented delivery to a patient-centred collaborative approach to care.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: The values within health organizations need to be underpinned by collaborative interprofessional patient-centred practice. To accomplish this goal, administrators and managers must support assessment of employees and visiting physicians as to their conformance with agency established expectations for such practice.