iPall: Learn Palliative Care
  • Home
    • Resources
    • Authors and Contributors
  • For Learners
    • Learning Site Partners
    • Discussion
  • Communication
    • Advance Care Planning
    • Clinical Communication Skills
    • Speaking of Prognosis
  • Physical
    • Symptom Management >
      • Pain >
        • Pain Assessment >
          • Universal Pain Assessment Tool
          • PAIN-AD (behavioral tool)
        • Opioid Conversion
      • ESAS-r Symptom Assessment
      • Respiratory Symptoms
      • GI symptoms
      • Delirium >
        • Delirium Assessment
      • Last Hours of Living
      • Interventional Palliative Care
      • Pediatric Palliative Care
    • Disease Management >
      • Geriatrics
      • Palliative Emergencies
      • Wound Care >
        • Wound Assessment
    • Prognostication
  • Psycho-social-spiritual
    • Emotional
    • Social
    • Spiritual
  • Practical
    • Interdisciplinary Palliative Care Team
    • Locations of Care
  • Ethical
  • Self-Care

Interdisciplinary Palliative Care Team

Central to palliative care practice - whether in the hospital, outpatient, or hospice setting - is the interdisciplinary team.  In this module, we review key concepts of the model and how interdisciplinary teamwork differs from multidisciplinary work.  

Typically, the members of a palliative care team will include:
  • Physician
  • Nurse
  • Pharmacist
  • Social worker
  • Chaplain
The rationale for this interdisciplinary representation is to assure that patient’s needs are met from a full biopsychosocialspiritual perspective, and engaging experts in each of the domains.  Likewise, expertise needs to be acknowledged and accessed within the team.  The tendency in medical care is to lean on the biological aspects of the illness experience: it is what is taught in schools and reinforced in practice.  A challenge to palliative care teams is to engage the discussion of all its experts.

Articles and video

  • GITT - the Geriatric model - www.gittprogram.org/learning.html (web page)
  • What is an interdisciplinary team? How does it differ from a multidisciplinary model? and other questions answered: www.gittprogram.org/files/Topic_1.pdf (article)
  • Interdisciplinary Interventions To Improve Pediatric Palliative Care and Reduce Health Care Professional Suffering Cynda Hylton Rushton, Elizabeth Reder, Barbara Hall, Katherine Comello, Deborah E. Sellers, Nancy Hutton. Journal of Palliative Medicine. August 2006, 9(4): 922-933. doi:10.1089/jpm.2006.9.922. 
  • A 5-minute video interview with an Interdisciplinary clinical case competition at Vanderbilt University, what they learned. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXfHvmTbT0o (video)
  • Learning from Jazz: How to work effectively in an interdisciplinary and every-changing team. JazzCode (video)
Proudly powered by Weebly