Blog post written by Hannah Gueller, Occupational Therapy Student at Concordia University

OTs are an integral part of interprofessional teams across various settings and populations. An interprofessional approach to healthcare delivery has been shown to increase quality and coordination of care, decrease errors, reduce hospitalizations, improve client satisfaction, and promote professional well-being. Interprofessional teams work together with the common goal of improving patient health outcomes. Each practitioner has a professional and ethical responsibility to provide services within their own competence and scope of practice. Challenges arise when we do not understand the role and scope of practice of other professions. 

If we don’t know how to communicate our role as OTs, how can we expect other healthcare providers to understand what we do?

As OTPs, it is easy to get frustrated when we constantly have to explain our role to patients, care partners, and other healthcare professionals. Instead of succumbing to frustration, we should celebrate the opportunity to create a better understanding of what we do and advocate for our profession. We are taught early in our professional education to develop an elevator pitch as our “go-to” to explain what we do and why we do it. Let’s share our elevator pitch with other healthcare professionals to help mitigate the misconceptions, confusion, and ambiguity regarding our role and value on interprofessional teams. 

How can we do this?

Share your elevator pitch far and wide! Curate an elevator pitch that can be modified and adapted (something that we are great at as OTs) to appeal to your team. Start by describing what an occupation is. I say, “an occupation is anything that you want to do, need to do, or are expected to do”. Then discuss how promoting independence in meaningful occupations improves the health and quality of life of our clients. It may also be helpful to provide personal examples of experiences with clients. Share your elevator pitch with your team, answer questions that arise, and discuss how you can collaborate to help clients. With increased confidence in communicating the distinct value of OT, we have the opportunity to advocate for and expand the profession.

Reflection & Call to Action

1. How can you initiate conversations with your interprofessional team to clarify roles and establish trust and confidence in one another?

2. Craft your elevator pitch! Talk about experiences that are meaningful to you and demonstrate the distinct value of OT. Share your elevator pitch in the comments!

References

American Occupational Therapy Association. (2021). Importance of interprofessional education for occupational therapy. American Journal of Occupational Therapy. Advance online publication.

Bosch, B., & Mansell, H. (2015). Interprofessional collaboration in health care: Lessons to be learned from competitive sports. Canadian Pharmacists Journal / Revue Des Pharmaciens Du Canada, 148(4), 176–179. https://doi.org/10.1177/1715163515588106

Interprofessional Education Collaborative. (2016). Core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice: Report of an expert panel. https://ipec.memberclicks.net/assets/2016-Update.pdf 

Kaiser, L., Conrad, S., Neugebauer, E. A. M., Pietsch, B., & Pieper, D. (2022). Interprofessional collaboration and patient-reported outcomes in inpatient care: A systematic review. Systematic Reviews, 11(1), 169. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-022-02027-x