Physician attitudes toward collaboration with health care professionals in Indiana

Objectives: The objectives of this study are to investigate physician attitudes towards collaboration, estimate the likelihood of collaborative practices, identify barriers to collaboration, and provide a basis for future studies in multidisciplinary collaborative practice. Methods: A total of 1141 physicians from Wishard Health Services were invited to participate in a 20-question survey that was developed and distributed electronically with two follow-up electronic reminders through Qualtrics software in September 2011. Questions included in the survey were physician and practice site background, physician attitude in terms of interprofessional trust, perceived value of other health care providers, likelihood of clinical task delegation and collaborations with other health care professionals. Physicians were also asked to identify causes of unsuccessful collaborations and barriers to effective collaboration. Data collections were completed in November 2011. Results: In the span of 2 months, 104 physicians (9.5%) completed the survey. Most commonly identified disadvantages of collaboration were miscommunication and extensive documentations. Among the respondents, 80% of physicians agreed that nurses were extremely important, while 40% of physicians consider pharmacists as extremely important healthcare team members. Among the 73% of physicians who did not currently have a Collaborative Drug Therapy Management (CDTM) agreement with pharmacists, 48% were likely to engage in CDTM if third-party payer reimbursed collaborative practices, and 12% would not engage in collaborative practice even if reimbursement exists. Conclusions: Physicians believe that pharmacists and nurses are an important part of the healthcare team and are willing to collaborate regarding patient care. And improving third-party payer reimbursement for collaborative drug therapy management may further promote physician-pharmacist collaboration.