Collaboration in health care is defined as health care professionals assuming complementary roles and cooperatively working together, sharing responsibility for problem-solving and making decisions to formulate and carry out plans for client care.

Effective health care teams are characterised by trust, respect, and collaboration. Teamwork is endemic to a system in which all employees are working for the good of a goal, who have a common aim, and who work together to achieve that aim.

There are several ways in which we can offer a collaborative approach:

Multidisciplinary teams

• Work separately and independently
• Come together to report assessment results and intervention outcomes from the perspective of their own discipline
• Do not engage in joint planning or intervention

Interdisciplinary teams

• Discuss and share perspectives to set goals and identify intervention priorities
• Collaborate and communicate for assessment and intervention
• Aim to provide less fragmentation of services

Transdisciplinary teams

• Coordinate and collaborate for assessment and intervention frequently and consistently
• Blend professional boundaries
• Offer flexible professional roles; may have role release, where some of the responsibilities are shared across disciplines
• Share information for planning and intervention
• Determine intervention goals jointly
• Share responsibility for documenting client outcomes