The need for greater interprofessional collaboration has been emphasized since the 1970s. Studies have documented, for example, the extent to which poor communication and lack of respect between physicians and nurses lead to harmful outcomes for patients.
Interprofessional collaboration is key to achieving success across education, leadership and practice and to supporting quality and innovative health care practices and delivery across diverse populations. The campaign is focusing on activities that promote accessible, integrated models of interprofessional collaboration in education and practice; fosters interprofessional education among all health professionals as students and throughout their careers; promotes nurses as full partners, with physicians and other health professionals in redesigning health care in the United States; and encourages care teams. To achieve these long term goals, the campaign is working to develop and implement strategies to reward interprofessional collaboration in nursing education; identify and showcase nurse-led interprofessional collaboration models in practice that provide nurses with the opportunity to lead change; and identify and showcase nurse-led practice models that promote interprofessional collaboration.