As health care providers, we know the benefits of working collaboratively. The Jones and Way model provides us with a common language to talk about collaborative practice and the 7 essential elements highlight specific components. However, working collaboratively is not always easy. Each setting of care has local, distinct, and multiple factors that can either support or be a barrier to collaborative practice. These are referred to as Practice Setting Variables and fall into 4 categories.

1. Provider variables e.g. personal and professional maturity, willingness to collaborate, knowledge, skills and experience with collaboration
2. Patient variables e.g. health needs, demographics, willingness to receive care from teams, cultural and health care values
3. Organizational or work setting variables e.g. governance, management structures, policies and procedures, communication and coordination mechanism, scheduling, infrastructure (supplies and equipment), staffing, community resources, providers on or off site, geographic location
4. Systemic variables e.g. variables external to the organization or work setting such as professional legislation and licensure, federal/provincial/territorial government policies, funding mechanisms, professional socialization and education, medical-legal issues, health human resource planning