Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 10, 2026
Using Visual and Narrative Methods to Achieve Fair Process in Clinical Care
Published on: February 16, 2011
Provider Perspectives on Palliative and Complex Care Team Collaboration
Madeline L Johnson1, Annie Friedrich2, P Galen DiDomizio3
1Department of Psychology (M.L.J.), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
Insights
Pediatric palliative care and complex care providers face similar collaboration challenges. Greater integration, like embedded programs or shared staff, can improve care for children with medical complexity (CMC).
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Healthcare
- Interdisciplinary Collaboration
- Medical Subspecialties
Background:
- Pediatric palliative care and complex care programs serve children with medical complexity (CMC).
- Collaboration between these programs is frequent but poorly documented.
- Programmatic differences exist across institutions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore facilitators and challenges in collaboration between pediatric complex care and palliative care providers.
- To understand provider perspectives on enhancing interdisciplinary collaboration.
Main Methods:
- Semi-structured interviews with 18 providers from 10 academic medical centers.
- Qualitative thematic analysis of transcribed interviews.
- Exploration of perceived collaboration facilitators, challenges, and enhancement strategies.
Main Results:
- Identified individual and institutional facilitators and challenges to collaboration.
- Described optimized collaborative processes.
- Collected provider visions for enhancing future collaboration.
Conclusions:
- Both pediatric palliative care and complex care providers identified similar collaboration facilitators and challenges.
- Greater integration (e.g., embedded programs, shared staff) can mitigate challenges.
- Further research should explore outcomes of integrated models, incorporating patient and family perspectives.
Context:
Pediatric palliative care and complex care programs frequently collaborate when caring for a shared population of children with medical complexity (CMC), despite programmatic heterogeneity across institutions. Yet, scant literature exists documenting the nature of collaboration between these subspecialties.
Objectives:
The aim of the present study is to explore perceived facilitators and challenges to collaboration among pediatric complex care and palliative care providers within a subset of Midwest medical institutions.
Methods:
Eighteen pediatric complex care and palliative care providers across ten academic medical centers completed semi-structured interviews. In addition to perceived facilitators and challenges, providers were asked to comment on hypothetical changes they would make to enhance future collaboration. Audio recordings were transcribed and qualitatively analyzed using thematic analysis.
Results:
Qualitative analysis of provider commentary revealed individual and institution-level facilitators and challenges to collaboration between both teams, descriptions of the collaborative process when facilitators are optimized, and visions for enhancing future collaboration.
Conclusion:
Participant responses from both subspecialties identified similar facilitators and challenges to collaboration, and supported greater integration as a means of mitigating collaborative challenges, offering ideas such as embedded programs, shared staff, or merging of divisions, among other interdisciplinary care models Future research is needed to explore methods of capturing outcomes associated with different integrative models, ideally through the incorporation of patient and family voices as a means of evaluating how clinical care is received.
Related Concept Videos
01:25Continuing Care
01:27Ethical Issues
Ethical Concerns in Healthcare:
01:21Interdisciplinary Care: The Health Care Team-I
Physicians
The physician's primary responsibility is to diagnose illness and direct the medical or surgical treatment of the condition. The authority to admit patients to a healthcare agency or institution and practice care within that setting is granted to physicians by the healthcare agency or institution...
01:18Interdisciplinary Care: The Health Care Team-II
Physical Therapist
A physical therapist (PT) aims to restore function or prevent additional impairment in a patient following an injury or disease. Massage, heat, cold, water, sonar waves, exercises, and electrical stimulation are some treatments used by PTs to treat...
01:15Methods of Documentation VI: Case Management Model
For example, a patient with a chronic...
01:13Patient-centered Care