Interdisciplinary and interprofessional communication in intensive and emergency care

Background Due to acuteness, time constraints, and psychological pressure as well as changing team compositions, professional communication constitutes a key challenge in the treatment of critically ill patients. Objectives The aim of this narrative review is to present the current literature on clinical relevance and current developments of interdisciplinary and interprofessional communication in intensive care and emergency medicine. Results Effective communication is of great importance in intensive care and emergency medicine, both for ensuring high-quality patient care and work satisfaction as well as mental health of the medical practitioners. Most conflicts occur between the medical and nursing staff, with communicative conflicts predominantly being related to discussions about the patient's prognosis and end-of-life decision-making. Structural measures such as regular team meetings and trainings seem suitable to specifically improve communication. However, the topic is commonly inadequately represented in everyday clinical practice as well as in research. Conclusions Even though the importance of interprofessional and interdisciplinary communication for high-quality patient care and workload reduction is increasingly being recognized, its routine application in everyday clinical practice is still scarce, particularly in intensive care and emergency medicine. Due to the specific structure and patient population of these fields of patient care, they can benefit more than other specialties from targeted measures to improve communication.