When working in hospital settings, physical therapists have frequent interactions with nurses. According to an interview done by XXX with XXX, physical therapists communicate with nurses daily as part of secondary patient care. The hospital's original mechanism for consults between nurses and physical therapist was paper medical records; however, that method of communication has since been replaced by face-to-face consults and electronic medical records. A recent article in the Journal of Interprofessional Care found that interactions between different types of health care professionals (including nurses and physical therapists) were "richer and lengthier, and consisted of negotiations which related to both clinical as well as social content" than those between health care professionals and physicians (Reeves, Rice, Conn, Miller, Kenaszchuk, & Zwarenstein, 2009, 633). The study also showed that these types of positive communications and interactions improved the quality of patient care and decreased the risk for negative patient outcomes.

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