Interprofessional Conflicts

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Interprofessional conflict


How do you define conflict in the healthcare setting?

Interprofessional conflict on healthcare teams is common and often centers around misunderstandings and disagreements about a patient's treatments.

    A study of conflict in the acute care setting in 323 ICUs in 24 countries found that:
  1. 72% of all clinicians reported conflict, often severe, in the prior week.
  2. Conflicts between physicians and nurses were the most common (32.6%).

All types of conflict were significantly associated with job strain.

What are some common reasons conflicts occur in healthcare?

Commonly occurring examples of conflict include differences in preferences for continuing life-sustaining treatments versus focusing on quality of life and differences in perceptions about roles and responsibilities among team members.

Handled poorly, conflicts can prevent recognition of a patient’s condition, lead to poorer patient outcomes, absorb precious time and energy, be demoralizing, perpetuate misunderstandings and allow resentments to simmer.

However, handled skillfully, conflict can provide an opportunity to explore and negotiate differences, prevent medical errors, improve patient care, enhance teamwork and guard against professional burnout.

What seems to be the conflict here?

In Mr. Stein's case, Ms. Adams seems to have different goals for the patient than what the patient’s wife and Dr. Miles discussed.

What do you think is the source of the conflict here?

We’ll learn more about the possible sources of this conflict later in the module.

Azoulay, Timsit, Sprung, et al. 2009



Quinn Dombrowski