Nurse Perceptions of Artists as Collaborators in Interprofessional Care Teams​

Abstract: Increased attention is being given to interprofessional collaboration in healthcare, which has
been shown to improve patient satisfaction, patient safety, healthcare processes, and health outcomes.
As the arts and artists are being more widely incorporated into healthcare settings throughout the
world, professional artists are contributing to interprofessional care teams. A secondary directed
content analysis of interviews with 31 nurses on a medical-surgical care unit investigated the roles
and impacts of professional artists on the interprofessional care team. The investigation utilized
established domains of interprofessional care, including values and ethics, roles and responsibilities,
interprofessional communication, and teams and teamwork, and created the domain of quality of
care. Findings suggest that artists are valued by nurses as members of the interprofessional care team,
that they enhance the provision of patient-centered care, and that they improve quality of care by
providing holistic dimensions of caring, including cognitive and social engagement, and meaningful
interaction. The presence of artists on interprofessional teams provides a cost-effective and welcome
resource for clinical staff and builds a culture in which creativity and interdisciplinary collaboration
are more highly valued and activated.

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Keywords: arts in health; arts; interprofessionalism; interprofessional collaboration;
patient-centered care

Jill Sonke, Virginia Pesata, Jenny Baxley Lee and John Graham-Pole
Center for Arts in Medicine, University of Florida, P.O. Box 115900, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA;
Academic Editors: Ian Walsh and Helen Noble