Some individuals and groups have even touted the use of teams as a way of saving expenses to our health care system. Something tells me that finding cost savings may be very difficult in the end. However, I’m willing to accept that interdisciplinary care may be the only way to address the shortage of physicians and nurses, and that patients may very well like this approach.

A case in point is the new state-of-the-art Edmonton Clinic, a joint project involving the Capital Health region, the University of Alberta and the provincial Alberta government. The price tag has soared to $900 million from an initial amount budgeted of $450 million at the time of breaking ground in October 2007. Apparently, Alberta’s overheated economy is one of the contributing factors driving up the cost of construction.

The positive side of this nearly one billion dollar facility is that it hopes to be a “revolutionary experiment in medical education”. It will be an attempt to instruct students in nuances of multidisciplinary team care provision.

The facility itself will be divided into two main buildings: one will house the clinical facilities and the other will be dedicated to education. Classrooms will be outfitted with the latest simulation technology allowing students to respond to various scenarios while functioning as part of a multidisciplinary team.

Eight hundred more additional health sciences students will be funded by the government to study under this interdisciplinary model. Ultimately, the university plans to establish a masters program that enables graduates to teach the team-building concept elsewhere.

What is interesting about this plan is the amount of money in initial costs. “Revolutionary experiment” is right and goes to show what can be done with a hundreds of millions of extra dollars lying around thanks to some “oil in the sand”. Not all provinces are so lucky.

It will be interesting to watch whether the initial capital expended results in improved outcomes for patients or whether the interdisciplinary care and revolutionary new facilities help control soaring costs of health care. I hope the powers that be have incorporated some way of measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of this plan.

If this “revolutionary experiment” in interdisciplinary care helps shore up the shortage of nurses and doctors then that will be the positive side. The flip side is that if this approach does not control health care costs despite its own hefty price tag, what happens then? One thing seems fairly certain, health care isn’t going to get any cheaper.