Healthcare Professionals : The Care Professionals

My third and final learning point is why it is important that there is a healthcare team. As I (Ivanova, 2014, b) said in the discussion board: “In order to improve the condition of the patient, it is really important all healthcare professionals work in a team.” This is relevant not only to the pharmacist but to all health care providers, because all of them have the same goal. Working in a team makes achieving that goal easier. Good communication decreases the chances of errors. Collaboration between professionals increases the awareness of each other’s skills and knowledge, which leads to an improvement in the health care service and decision-making. Teams are formed to create respect and trust between healthcare providers and also to prevent misunderstandings. The healthcare team should be centred on the patient and also making him feel better and improving his quality of life. Not having a team may result in serious errors and argues due to lack of communication. This is clearly not the point of the health care service. The interprofessional learning activity enabled us to understand the importance of having a team in healthcare and that coordination between all professionals is required in order to get the best effect from the treatment of the patient.

As future pharmacists, we are going to face with not only the medications but also the patients, which the former ones are our tools while the latter ones are the people we use correct tools to care about. We are required to combine our pharmacy knowledge among medications with patients’ different health conditions to create the patient-centered care and provide the best outcomes. However, this care trend is in transition now, from professional-orientated to patient-centered.

As time goes by, people get infected with new diseases or current prevailing diseases. Consequently, new drugs are produced in an attempt to overcome these diseases, which results in patients with complex health needs. The complexity of the patients’ healthcare therefore needs to be addressed by more than one discipline. Interprofessional collaborative care is a type of health care that involves people from different professions working together and relying on each other to provide effective care to patients. Interprofessional collaborative care is important and predominantly a focus of the health care reform because it improves healthcare outcome for the patients and reduces disagreements between different professions. I was able to experience interprofessional care when my grandma was diagnosed with cancer. The physician and the pharmacist worked together in ensuring that she got the proper medication that would not have any side effects on her. In addition, the physician would call the pharmacy every two weeks to check on my grandma’s progress and to ensure that she had picked up her medications. Both my grandma and I were grateful because we felt that our needs were taken care of appropriately. Moreover, interprofessional health care is important in a curriculum because if helps the students to be better prepared to work as a team. This is achieved by teaching students about their own profession while receiving an understanding of the other professions and the roles they

During the two and a half years of my pharmacy journey, I have been thinking what can a pharmacist do within the healthcare interprofessional team to better help the patients in order to achieve the best health outcome. I work in a clinic as well as inpatient pharmacy, additionally, I had my rotations at CVS and Regions Hospital. all these experiences shape my version of the pharmacists at different settings. Therefore, in various pharmacy settings, pharmacists can work differently with the whole healthcare team. The recent PED-Rx events inspired me how important pharmacists can play roles in when working in a team.

Hall and Waver ( 2001) defines Interprofessional as a group of professionals from different disciplines such as nurses, doctors, pharmacist that are working and communicating with each other while providing their knowledge, skills and attributes to enhance and support the contributions of others. Suter et al (2009) also said that the ability to work in an interprofessional team to convey collaborative, patient-centered care is an important aspect of professional practice that involves a possession of a particular set of competencies, such as communication skills. In relation to (Weinstein et al., 2003) Collaboration is the collection of knowledge, skills, values and motives which transforms to effective practice when applied by practitioners.

“All health care disciplines share a common and primary commitment to serving the patient and working toward the ideal of health for all.” (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2014, p. 1) There are many different professional members in the healthcare system. Each of them, have a specific specialty and responsibility to the patient and play an important role in the patient’s overall plan of care. “The scope of health care mandates that health professionals work collaboratively and with other related disciplines. Collaboration emanates from an understanding and appreciation of the roles and contributions that each discipline brings to the care delivery experience.” (American Association of Colleges of

In interprofessional care, it is important that the health care providers build skills that enhance interprofessional communication and interaction no matter what model is practiced. Successful interprofessional communication is a necessary competency that can ensure achievements of outcomes, improvement of team functioning, efficiency, and individual value (Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel, 2011). Training, simulation experiences, group projects, and personal interactions with other staff members can facilitating positive or negative interactions that can affect communication. To ensure that successful interprofessional communication and interaction, much consideration should also be given to the environment

Pharmacists have many different responsibilities to their patients, these include promoting patient’s safety through checking the patient’s medication and keeping good records every time a patient fills a new prescription or refills prescription filled (Leagle, 1994). Pharmacists should also improve

One of the most important responsibilities of a pharmacist—whether in a hospital or community setting—is to help people. I was able to observe this critical factor portrayed by my clinical instructors at both St. Francis and at Walgreens. All the pharmacists I worked with during those two weeks displayed a genuine desire to improve their patients’ quality of life by ensuring no drug-drug interactions were present and asking questions about medication histories. I felt humbled and gratified being able to contribute in a minor way when providing

Our health care environment is faced with the patient safety issues, shortages on health and human resources, increasingly complex health care needs. Before coming to activity I expect that Interprofesional activity is a way of bringing all the perspectives of different healthcare professionals to improve patient safety. During the activity I found the role of a mental health counselor might treat a patient who has been the victim of domestic abuse, individuals struggling with poor self-esteem, helps individuals and families deal with difficult emotions, in a variety of settings, including schools, hospitals, private offices and clinics, and substance abuse treatment facilities. On the other hand, Pharmacists can play an active role in treating

Inter-professional collaboration, among the various healthcare professions, can lead to more effective communication regarding the patient’s wants and needs, and the most efficient solution to attaining those needs. Appropriate medication management is just one of the many areas, we can work together to improve for the overall health and wellness of our patients. Effective communication, and advanced scheduling among nurses, therapists, and pharmacists can improve overall patient care by working together to determine the appropriate medication type, and dosage for each patient, enabling them to participate more during therapy sessions, and consequently; impacting their overall performance and goal attainment. Furthermore, the patient would be looking at a

In my NUR-301 Class, I had the opportunity to practice on Interprofessional Education. Our nursing student team was partnered with first year pharmacy school students to learn about each other professions and to study on how we could work in a team of healthcare professionals to attain a common goal. As this was my first time experience to meet other students from a different department of Notre Dame of Maryland University, I was not sure what to expect from our discussions. Even if I have some experiences working both in hospitals and in a pharmacy, I was no fully aware of the responsibilities of a pharmacist directly to the patient or to the healthcare field specialists.

Pharmacist have the knowledge and expertise about allergies, medications, and drug interactions. They are the best individuals to educate the patients, physicians and nurses. As nurse leaders, we can reinforce that information in terms the patient can understand. We can advocate for both sides, the pharmacist and the patient. We link the parties together to connect the information together. We are that vital relationship. When the patient has that crucial information and understand, remittance rates are down and drug interactions are less common.

First of all, I discovered pharmacist-patient communication as one of the current topics in pharmacy practice. In fact, I realized that an ability to effectively communicate with patients was not only crucial to deliver a high-quality pharmaceutical care but also indispensable to maximize therapeutic outcomes. I also found out that keeping up-to-date with new development in pharmacy practice, new medications, new cost-effective therapy guidelines, new pharmacy practice regulations and current insurance policies was a lifelong commitment for all practicing pharmacists. The most challenging issue in pharmacy practice that caught my attention was the affordability of some medications and how the fate of some patients were dictated by the health insurance companies. Although pharmacists often spent a great deal of time on the phone trying to resolve the insurance problems, there were some expensive medications that might not be covered by some insurance plans. Having to explain this issue to a patient in desperate need of treatment who could not afford a costly prescription was very heart-rending and in my opinion was the toughest of all

Parameters were set for the pharmacists, to guide the patient counseling interactions. Patient interviews were designed as both study specific knowledge, attitude, & behavior (KAB) surveys as well as Likert- type surveys. Specific counseling dialogue was expected to be centered around three main categories of patient interviewing, as set by APhA and other literature. These categories included “fostering relationships/ information gathering, assessment and plan/follow- up” (Lin et al. , 2010). Ultimately, there were eleven items that fell under the three main categories that guided the pharmacists further in their line of questioning.