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AIM: To examine whether an internal medicine interdisciplinary floor team enhances the hospital and clinical outcomes for seniors with acute medical illness. METHODS: Seniors admitted to medical floor teaching services of a USA teaching hospital were recruited and allocated to the interdisciplinary (ITD; n = 236) and usual care teams (n = 248). Compared with the usual care team, the interdisciplinary team physicians carried out daily "geriatric" assessment and management, and led the interdisciplinary team meeting designed for improving interprofessional collaboration. RESULTS: After controlling for patient and physician characteristics, the mean hospital length of stay in the ITD team (6.1 days; 95% CI 5.2-7.7 days) was 0.7 days shorter than that in the usual care team (6.8 days; 95% CI 5.7-8.3 days; P = 0.008). There was no significant difference in delirium and 30-day hospital readmission between care groups. CONCLUSIONS: Notwithstanding partly positive associations, the results from the present study suggest that interdisciplinary team-based care is, at best, associated with enhancing the clinical and hospital outcomes for seniors with acute medical illness.
Yoo et al. (Tue,) studied this question.