Analysis of Multidisciplinary Collaboration in Primary Healthcare: the Chilean Case

Abstract

Around 10% of the population suffers from diabetes, and this percentage is expected to rise. Healthcare guidelines propose a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach for treatment. However, there is little data to understand whether healthcare professionals are actually collaborating and how this collaboration takes place. We analyzed 4 years of data from 3 healthcare centers in Chile, corresponding to 2,838 patients. Patients were classified according to the composition of the healthcare team into four categories: highly multidisciplinary teams, specialized teams, physician-nurse centered teams, and non-collaborative treatment. Our results show that team prevalence is related to patient and healthcare center characteristics.