**1. Introduction**

There is growing interest in leveraging the knowledge, expertise, and skills of teams of experts from different disciplinary backgrounds to respond to wicked

problems affecting our society. Wicked problems are problems that require insight from experts who cut across multiple disciplines, in order to address the problem [1]. The interconnected aspect of such problems highlights their complexity. However, it is still unclear how team members from different disciplines can effectively leverage their unique knowledge to develop innovative solutions to harmful epidemics, such as the opioid epidemic faced by the United States. Interdisciplinary team approaches, those that involve applying the knowledge and skills from different academic disciplines or subjects that are normally regarded as distinct, to the same issue [2] are gaining visibility in translation, dissemination, implementation, and improvement research. In this research study, we seek to understand and develop strategies that facilitate the formation and sustainability of interdisciplinary teams and improve health-care delivery in crisis situations [3]. We focus on opioid epidemic crisis in the United States and how EDs respond to the opioid epidemic, within the context of interdisciplinary teams. EDs are dynamic settings where interdisciplinary teams, in which collaborators can be located at different departments or institutions, endorse different ideologies, or rely on different methodologies, but share the common goal of addressing a problem, are necessary to developing cohesive and insightful solutions to the opioid epidemic in the United States.
