Dr. Pauline Pariser of the Taddle Creek Family Health Team and the University Health Network in Toronto developed a cutting-edge, collaborative approach to treating patients with complex conditions. She gathers a team of healthcare professionals (including family physicians, internists, psychiatrists, a dietitian, a pharmacist and more) for an intensive two-hour team session, including a series of one-on-one interviews with the patient, relayed by video camera to the team.  The video profiles the entire process and provides a thorough picture of the interaction between professionals, and with the patient.  In order to respect the serious subject nature and the patient who consented to have her entire case analysis filmed, the video is not shown here (limited numbers of a DVD are presented in professional settings). Interviews with the participants on the benefits of the program, however, appear below:

As Dr. Howard Abrams of Sunnybrook Hospital puts it in the interviews section of the video:

To me, this is the solution to a very common problem in our health system, which is the serial or parallel consult. The primary care provider takes a very good history, has a long problem list, and then patient sets out on this journey of seeing multiple specialists, who then may re-refer to other specialists and nobody gets a complete picture of the patient…. [Here] I am eliminating a whole other set of potential referrals because I’m hearing from the people I need to hear from, and also, I’m getting a deeper understanding so that now I don’t make inappropriate referrals.