Six national organizations representing thousands of healthcare professionals nationwide have joined together to create the Hospital Care Collaborative (HCC) to examine pressing needs and outcomes related to hospitalized care.
The HCC includes members from:
- American Association of Critical Care Nurses
- American Association of Respiratory Care
- American Society of Health System Pharmacists
- Case Management Society of America
- Society for Social Work Leadership in Health Care
- Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM)
"The collaborative really represents the coming together of organizations with similar mindsets and similar philosophies about the way patient care should be delivered—vis a vis teamwork, collaboration, true respect, and recognition for the talent and experience that others bring to the healthcare team," said Russell Holman, MD, a member and past president of SHM, which represents hospitalists.
"We thought that a great way of modeling collaboration and teamwork would not be to just to look at pockets of excellence on a grassroots level, but also to look at modeling this at a professional organizational level"—including the efforts in hospitals of physicians, nurses, case managers, pharmacists, social workers, and others, said Holman, who is also the COO of Cogent Healthcare.
He added that much of the discussion around healthcare reform has "ignited a great deal of conversation" within the collaborative. "There is more and more interest, for example, in terms of incentivizing hospitals and other providers based on quality instead of volume of services," he said. "We're very much interested in the process of healthcare being reflected of the outcomes that patients expect."
As part of the launch of HCC, the group has established 13 guiding principles for delivering team-based care in the hospital. It represents the consensus of the HCC members.
The new principles emphasize the need for collaboration, a focus on patient-centered care, accountability, and information sharing. They also recognize systemic issues in hospital care, such as gaps in healthcare education and the pressing need for hospital culture to better promote teamwork.
The final principle states that "the HCC recognizes that today's hospital cultures do not foster true teams of healthcare professionals" and it calls on all stakeholders—such as payers, providers, administrators, patients—to work together "to create a new hospital culture that nurtures and rewards high performing teams."
Using its members and common principles as the foundation for its work, the HCC is beginning to engage in new activities designed to improve care for hospitalized patients, including:
- Identifying and promoting best practices in multidisciplinary teamwork
- Promoting continued and expanded collaboration among the HCC organizations to develop and implement strategies for teamwork among health professionals
- Developing and promoting education programs, specifically for interdisciplinary teams
"This has been a landmark even for us and for the other organizations involved," Holman said. We're looking forward to pushing these principles into both application as well as the broadening of the inclusion in this group. I think there's a lot more to follow."