Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore interprofessional experiences of incorporating fracture prevention activities in clinical practice inspired by an empowerment approach.

Design/methodology/approach – Data collection consisted primarily of focus groups interviews, systematized and analyzed by the grounded theory method. The study took place in a health-care district in a county in Sweden and involved health professionals from primary health care and orthopaedic departments.

Findings – The findings generated the core category forming a learning culture in managing to incorporate fracture prevention activities in clinical practice. In this learning culture, new forms of interaction with patients were practised and the collaboration developed between multidisciplinary teams added meaning and triggered personal and collective learning in particular about the need for breaking professional patterns, creating more empowering meetings, making the preventive links visible and constructing a greater sense of prevention within the community.

Practical implications – The findings show that learning processes through patient-centred interaction and face-to face collaboration based on the professionals' own requests and experiences can be an important motivator to promote fracture prevention activities.

Originality/value – This study provides some interprofessional elements in achieving a learning culture concerning health education and fracture prevention.

The aim of this study was to explore the development of interprofessional collaboration aiming to improve secondary prevention of osteoporosis by studying this topic expansively from the perspectives of different stakeholders. The method used was a longitudinal single case study with both qualitative and quantitative data sources. The findings elucidate that the bottom-up structure used triggers a freedom to act for the professionals and a changed leadership. Such an approach seems to make managers aware of the need for a horizontal organizational focus that, in this case, was crucial for developing interprofessional collaboration. Furthermore, the study shows that continuous feedback was central to motivate professionals to collaborate. Constructive feedback was created by interprofessional and patient-centered interaction skills, facilitated by confirming leadership promoting ability to recognize the efficacy of joint collaboration. The interprofessional collaboration resulted in an improved chain of care with increased transparency and collective control with benefits for both patients and providers. Outcomes at the system level showed an appreciable increase in patients investigated for osteoporosis: 88% were followed up in primary care and nearly half had improved their health behavior. The implementation of a bottom-up structure where leaders and professionals are developing interdependency, measuring collective performance and using feedback loops generated, in this case, motivational forces for interprofessional collaboration. It is reasonable to assume that these findings could be transferable to similar healthcare settings. Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13561820.2012.724123?prevSearch=allfield%253A%2528Hjalmarson%2529&searchHistoryKey=