Hospital culture can break down walls between disciplinary 'cliques'

Photo credit: Chris Stacey, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

Meaningful improvement in healthcare will require organizations to break down clinical barriers and eliminate the cliquish environment found in far too many hospitals, according to the BMJ Open.

Researchers from the Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie University, led by Jeffrey Braithwaite, brought together 133 clinicians from different hospitals into a single lab and had them play interactive games without the workplace politics associated with their hospitals.

"We found that when we grouped various healthcare professionals into mixed teams they did not exhibit stereotyped behavior based on their professional status,” Braithwaite said in a statement. “In fact, what was even more interesting was that observers of the participants' teamwork couldn't tell in most cases who was a doctor, nurse or allied healthcare professional.”

Overall, participants had few major personality differences or incompatibilities between disciplines, as their collaboration within the experimental setting made clear, according to Braithwaite and his team.

The results demonstrate that interdisciplinary “tribalism” within the industry is neither necessary nor inevitable, Braithwaite said, but rather comes down to individual organizational cultures. To prevent these issues within their organizations, he added, healthcare leaders must work to develop initiatives that incorporate not only broader cultures and contexts within the health system, but also individual employees’ or disciplines’ characteristics to create a more collaboration-friendly environment.

Research published last November found interdisciplinary practice is a major driver of collaboration and positive outcomes, FierceHealthcare previously reported, and breaking down such barriers is particularly vital for treating an aging population with increasingly complex conditions.

- read the study abstract
- here’s the statement