TRANSDISCIPLINARY CARE

What is Transdisciplinary care?

Transdisciplinary (TD) care is a holistic approach to patient assessment and treatment through a highly collaborative team of health care professionals.

How does Transdisciplinary care differ from the conventional approach to care?

In contrast with the primary care provider (pcp) centered approach where the pcps act as a gatekeeper to specialized care, a transdisciplinary approach not only allows other health care professionals increased decision making capability in patient care, but through continuing cross-disciplinary education and regulated overlapping roles, greater efficiency in patient care can be achieved.

Transdisciplinary care also differs from interdisciplinary care. Where interdisciplinary involves only the collaboration of multiple disciplines in the assessment and treatment process, transdisciplinary care encompasses the flexibility of role extensions between health care team professionals through cross-disciplinary education. The TD approach helps to break down the barriers between professions.

What can the application of TD care do to improve the current health care setting?

The integration of TD care into the health care setting will aim to improve the efficiency of care, the quality of care, and cooperation between health professionals.

The use of a single assessment form may help improve efficiency. The conventional TD approach to assessment would involve an evaluation by a group of all health professionals relevant to the patient. A single assessment form will be constructed and shared by the TC team. The use of this single assessment form would eliminate repetitious questions and tests on the patient. The expansion of disciplinary roles may also increase the efficiency of the assessment.

You can view an example of a TD pilot assessment.

To maximize quality care, every component of the patient’s health must be considered in assessment, prevention, and treatment. In the traditional gatekeeper approach, mental and social well-being are often overlooked. In a conventional scenario, a biomedical diagnosis is made and it becomes the primary responsibility of the primary care provider to determine the course of treatment. The gate-keeping physician also reserves the responsibility to refer the patient to a specialist. This approach may lead to a number of quality problems.

An example of such quality problems can be seen in geriatric hearing loss. Geriatric patients with hearing loss are often told by the examining pcp that their hearing loss is a part of the aging process and no action is taken.

In an article from the Geriatric Times titled “A Transdisciplinary Holistic Approach to Hearing Health Care” by Carole E. Johnson, Ph.D.,CCC-A, and Jeffrey L. Danhauer, Ph.D.,CCC-A., the transdisciplinary care model is examined.

In this TD care approach to hearing health care, the audiologist is assigned as the team leader. Information is shared between health professionals, support personnel, the primary care physician, the patient, and friends and family of the patient.

Through this team approach, the physical, social, psychological, and communication status of the patient are accounted for.

Through a focus on team cooperation, TD care also encourages communication and interaction between health professionals. Via continuing cross-disciplinary communication, opinions of each health professional will be communicated effectively and respected both filling in gaps in care as well as helping to minimize discrimination between providers.