Interdisciplinary Teams - Members and Their Roles

Each member of a team needs to recognize the unique expertise contributed by each profession represented and the areas where skills overlap among different professions.
Take the quiz on professional perceptions to explore those geriatric care skills you feel most and least secure in exercising and to identify other professions in which those skills might be sharper. Health care team members can be from many different professions.

Click here to see descriptions of team members by discipline.

Understanding the expertise of each discipline will help team members respect the contributions of each member. Knowledge of the roles and skills of health care professionals is not part of most training processes. Training occurs within one's own professional environment with one's own language, terminology, problem-solving methods, and professional behaviors.

Patient and Family Participation
Remember that the patient and the family are important members of the care team. If they are to be active participants, they need to inform providers about themselves as well as be informed of what is happening in nontechnical language. The care plan can be incomplete or inadequate if time is not taken to listen and include the families and patient's input. Information about their life experiences and response to illness can be central to their care plan. Making the patient and family team members requires acceptance of their background, culture, and feelings.

Family caregivers and the patient can be viewed as integral members of the team, although they are often inadequately integrated into vital team functions.

How to integrate the family into the team, needs to be a "role" that one or more professional team members need to have.

Non-Professional Team Members

These team members may include neighbors and friends who can provide information that will help in the development of the client’s care plan.

Members	Role	Contribution to Team	Barrier to Participation
Client/Patient	Consumer	Provide information necessary for assessment planning of care. Bring their needs & perspectives on illness, treatment and what they view as the major goals of care. The care goals must be endorsed by the client/patient in order to achieve successful adherence to a therapeutic plan.	Illness – Cognitive status – Important to remember that while global decision making may be diminished, yet capacity around specific areas can be retained. While unable to manage financial matters, may retain ability to determine end-of-life decisions
Family Care-Giver Spouse/Children	Consumer Advocate for Client Provider of direct Care	Provides a wealth of information regarding the client/patient – pre-illness functioning, hobbies, interest, and concerns. Offers direct input about ability and willingness to assist in care.	May not have detailed knowledge of disease process or the roles and function of the professionals on the team. May not live close to the client. Family history and/or dynamics may interfere with knowledge of client and ability to participate.
Non-Family Care - Giver Neighbor/Friend	Advocate for Client Provide direct care for client.	Provide information regarding the client/patient – pre-illness functioning, hobbies, interest, and concerns. Offers direct input about ability and willingness to assist in care.	May not be identified

Consider these issues in the following case study adapted from the Rush Presbyterian – St. Luke’s Medical Center, Rush Institute on Aging Geriatric Interdisciplinary Team Training Project: The questions that follow the case help with matching skills to tasks.

Mr. Green

From studying the case of Mr. Green, it can be seen that there may be different levels of involvement from team members, depending on the patient’s needs. In addition to their professional roles, members of a team assume roles that characterize their personality, longevity with the team, sex, ethnicity, and culture. Team members need to understand each other and respect the roles played by each professional.

There is always potential for role overlap between professionals, and the team members are responsible for deciding who does what when. Roles should and will change, depending on the needs of the patient and team. A team will continually need to clarify these role responsibilities.

Effective team members possess professional competence, have patient care as their number one goal, and respect and trust other professionals on the team.