Origins of Multidisciplinary Care
The concept of multidisciplinary care for complex or rare diseases is
not new, nor specific to the field of vascular anomalies. The origin of
interdisciplinary healthcare teams is generally traced back to military
models of healthcare developed during World War II.8Successful implementation of multidisciplinary teams during wartime led
to subsequent multidisciplinary team development in the fields of
surgery, rehabilitation, burn injury, and mental health care.
Development of more modern interdisciplinary healthcare teams in the US
came out of various social movements and helped establish
multidisciplinary care as beneficial for both patients and health
professionals.8–11 A major impetus to the development
of modern multidisciplinary teams came from the development of new
healthcare delivery models such as healthcare maintenance organizations
(HMOs) in the 1990s, encouraged also by increased fiscal pressures on
hospital systems.8 In more recent years, there has
been increased support for development of multidisciplinary care teams,
based on recommendations from the Institute of Medicine and legislation
from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of
2010.5