[Interdisciplinary centres in hospitals? A review of the literature]

The treatment of complex disease patterns demands knowledge, and hence the collaboration of many medical disciplines. Interdisciplinary approaches to treatment are thus superior to multidisciplinary ones in terms of quality and costs. To make use of those benefits, interdisciplinary centres have emerged at many hospitals. Our review of the literature has sought to answer two questions: 1) Is there any evidence for the relationship 'creation of a centre = creation of interdisciplinarity'? 2) How can interdisciplinarity be fostered in centres? Medical and economic publications were identified via key terms in PubMed, Web of Knowledge and WISO. Using their references, further publications were researched. Contributions that complied with predefined criteria were included. For 75 of the 78 publications interdisciplinarity is the means to achieve a centre's objectives in quality and cost. Almost all the positive results achieved in centres, e.g., an increase in number of cases, are attributed to the seemingly established interdisciplinarity, without any evidence to substantiate this interrelation (question 1). The recommendations for creating the requested lively interdisciplinarity are insufficient, since technical arrangements dominate and the importance of social and therewith behavioural aspects is often forgotten--the findings of the respective literature remain unappreciated (question 2). Moreover, pertinent research as well as qualitative longitudinal research designs activating the knowledge of physicians, social scientists and economists should be used to investigate the interdisciplinarity sought for in centres.