Interprofessional Collaboration in Teleaudiology

Abstract

Purpose: Teleaudiology, or the delivery of audiology services remotely, can improve patients' access to care by reducing the travel burden required for traditional in-person appointments. Teleaudiology also connects professionals across distances and, therefore, offers unique opportunities to collaborate on interprofessional teams. In health care, interprofessional collaboration (IPC) happens when professionals from different disciplines work together to deliver high-quality health care. In this viewpoint article, we discuss the role of IPC in teleaudiology, including best practices for effective collaboration. We illustrate several examples from rural Alaska to central Texas and the Arizona/Mexico border where teams collaborating across professions is an important element of teleaudiology service delivery. We also describe potential challenges to IPC in the context of teleaudiology and suggest strategies to overcome them. Conclusions: Strong IPCs offer teleaudiology team members the opportunity to achieve more together than they would individually. As teleaudiology grows in use and becomes part of standard of care, there will be a greater opportunity and need for audiologists to work in partnership with individuals from diverse professional backgrounds and share resources to deliver high-quality and accessible patient-centered care.