Caring for patients in an acute care setting in a hospital requires a team approach and involves a multitude of healthcare professionals including nurses, attending physicians, residents, case managers, pharmacists, and clinical psychologists to name a few. Each of these professions enters into practice with different skills sets, knowledge and professional identities that contribute to patient care. Yet, in many circumstances, barriers exist between disciplines that can obstruct a team-based system.

Florida Atlantic University's Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine have partnered with Boca Raton Regional Hospital (BRRH) on an innovative one-year project funded by The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation. The project titled, "Aligning Education and Practice to Support Interprofessional Collaboration," has been designed to bridge the gap between what is being taught in academia and lived in practice. Currently, FAU's medical, nursing and social work students come together to learn the nationally recommended interprofessional competencies. However, this is a new trend in healthcare education, which historically was not part of the curriculum.

The objective of this project is to align academic and healthcare delivery system partners to create practice environments in the hospital setting, which support interprofessional collaboration and quality patient-centered outcomes. The project will initially focus on the discharge process at BRRH and will take place on three different units where care teams partner with patients and families within the hospital's organization.

The project team will include two faculty members in FAU's College of Nursing, the director of FAU's internal medicine residency program, housed at BRRH, and BRRH's director of medical staff, chief nursing officer, director of nursing, director of pharmacy, director of case management, a clinical psychologist, and a first- and second-year medical resident.

FAU and BRRH will initiate the project with a survey that will include several items that address the frequency, timeliness and accuracy of the patient discharge process as well as how groups involved relate and interact with each other. They also will address problem solving, communication, sharing goals and knowledge, and mutual respect while facilitating patient discharge.