• C Müller, L Zimmermann, and M Körner.
• Rehabilitation (Stuttg). 2014 Dec 1;53(6):390-5.

PurposeInterprofessional collaboration is an essential feature of quality and success in medical rehabilitation, a field which is influenced by a variety of factors. It is the objective of this study to identify beneficial factors that may promote team collaboration as well as barriers which may hinder it.MethodsThe facilitators and barriers of team collaboration were identified in a cross-sectional study. We conducted guided expert interviews with 18 managers aged between 36 and 62 years (M = 49.2) in a total of 5 inpatient rehabilitation clinics. Among the surveyed managers were 5 senior physicians and 13 department head managers of the health professionals (4 head nurses,6 head therapists and 3 heads of psychological departments). The qualitative analysis of interview transcripts was carried out according to Mayring’s structured content analysis approach.ResultsFrom a total of 480 coded statements,337 are concerned with factors supporting interprofessional collaboration and 143 relate to barriers.The most common statements concerning supporting factors relate to the main category “Interprofessional Coordination of Treatment”.Here, for example, the existence of an overall rehabilitation concept and planning of care services with rehabilitation goals in mind are regarded as facilitating. Variables such as interactive information exchange, multilateral communication,transparent team roles, defined tasks of the entire team or of individual team members play significant roles in this context. Hindering factors and barriers to interprofessional collaboration are mentioned in particular in relation to the organization.In terms of organization, heavy workload(time pressure, high treatment frequencies,altered severity of rehabilitation needs, considerable administration costs), inadequate pay Inter and insufficient time corridors to consult within the interprofessional team are rated as limiting factors.ConclusionInfluencing factors on interprofessional collaboration identified in our study are similar to those named in other studies. Facilitators and barriers of interprofessional collaboration should be taken into account when guiding and managing teams.

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