In New Brunswick all Community Health Centres are being set-up using a model based on a collaborative approach. Efforts are also being made to implement this approach in other health care settings.
A fundamental part of a team-based inter-professional approach to PHC is the clear
understanding of the scope of practice (SOP) including roles, functions, responsibilities and accountability. The following definitions* are useful in better understanding collaboration in the context of PHC:
Collaborative practice is:
- An integrated approach to delivering services. Health care providers function as colleagues and are grounded by common care goals, supported by shared decision making, and nourished by a climate of mutual respect, trust and support. Effective communication and clear definitions of roles and responsibilities are integral to success; and
- An inter-professional process for communication and decision making that enables the separate and shared knowledge and skills of primary health care providers to synergistically influence the service provided to a population or to an individual.
Common to both definitions is the importance of respecting each other’s roles and responsibilities. There is also a shared commitment to ensure that the right provider delivers the right service at the right time.
The Building a Better Tomorrow Intitiative and the manual Guiding Facilitation in the Canadian Context are tools being used in NB to support the Collaborative Approach.
- Building a Better Tomorrow Intitiative
- Guiding Facilitation in the Canadian Context *
* Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Scope of practice working group. St. John’s, NL: Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Health and Community Services. 2004.