The Johns Hopkins Delirium Consortium: A model for collaborating across disciplines and departments for delirium prevention and treatment

Delirium is an important syndrome affecting inpatients in various hospital settings. This article focuses on multidisciplinary and interdepartmental collaboration to advance efforts in delirium clinical care and research. The Johns Hopkins Delirium Consortium, which includes members from the disciplines of nursing, medicine, rehabilitation therapy, psychology, and pharmacy within the departments and divisions of anesthesiology, geriatrics, oncology, orthopedic surgery, psychiatry, critical care medicine, and physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, is one model of such collaboration. This article describes the process involved in developing functional collaboration around delirium and highlights projects, opportunities, and challenges resulting from them.