Jennifer Tomasik
Principal
CFAR was engaged by the Robert Wood John Foundation in a project designed to foster interprofessional collaboration between physicians and nurses, after a national report about the future of nursing provoked objections from physicians’ groups, primarily about “scope of practice.” Working with participants from primary care physician and nursing organizations and RWJF staff, CFAR designed and facilitated a dialogue over several months about inter-professional collaboration that led to a new understanding between nurses and physicians about each other’s roles and the opportunities for partnership between them. The project revitalized a productive debate among members of their organizations, acknowledged the need to work on interprofessional collaboration at the organizational level, and enhanced the recognition that challenges remain in keeping the patient front and center while improving interprofessional collaboration.
As a result of the project, the Foundation committed to continue work on interprofessional collaboration, not only with professional organizations, but with Chief Medical Officers and Chief Nursing Officers in hospital systems and clinics throughout the country who are putting new and creative inter professional practices into action at the local level. CFAR is now working with the Foundation on this phase of the project.
Program results are available on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation website.
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