The public health sector in welfare states is increasingly subject to organisational changes, and collaboration between healthcare professionals has long been requested as a way to obtain higher quality and at the same time lower spending in health care. In addition, it has been welcomed as a way to equalize power relations among healthcare professionals. However, many critical perspectives on collaborative practice have emerged over the past. Based on desk research, we investigate the various ways collaborative practice historically has been defined and understood to integrate the knowledge development about collaborative practice into its current state. We find that a broad range of definitions and normative concepts has been proposed. We demonstrate that the various definitions lead to different directions of organising work. We conclude that whether and in what sense a focus on collaborative practice can be said to help improve the delivery of health care depends on the context, the agendas and interests of the involved actors.