Examination of the effects of interprofessional collaboration on nurse productivity: An important consideration in health human resources planning.

Our health care system has been faced with a number of challenges with its health workforce. Leading the list are shortages of various health providers, difficulties attracting health providers to available jobs, and once hired, difficulty keeping them in those positions. These demands affect how well the health care system functions to meet the needs of its citizens. Health human resources planning is a strategy used to address these types of challenges by determining whether the right number and skill mix of providers are in the right place at the right time to meet the health needs of people. However, equally important and rarely examined, is the need to consider how these providers work together and what impact this has on the quality and safety of the care they provide, for the sustainability of our health care system lies in the ability of providers to work together, with patients and families, in teams. Traditionally, providers have been taught in isolation from one another. Seldom do they have the opportunity to learn with, from and about one another, and this will impact how well they work together once in the health care system. If they learn in isolation, they are more apt to work in isolation and will rarely call upon one another to share their knowledge and skills because they are not fully aware of what the other can offer. Consequently, if providers do not work together as a team and share their knowledge and expertise, inefficient duplication of care occurs. Nurses, the largest professional group in health care, have been reluctant to collaborate with others, possibly because they have not been taught how to or because they are not sure how working together effects their workload. This research study will examine the relationship between the knowledge and skill required to work collaboratively, nurses' abiility to do so, and the impact working collaboratively has on nurses' ability to work effectively and efficiently.