Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice

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.

The issue of interprofessional working is currently one of key importance in the field of health and social care (Moyneux, 2001). Using the 6 stages of Gibb’s Reflective cycle (1988) I am going to demonstrate my understanding and explore the importance of interprofessional working as well as discuss barriers and facilitators for team working. A healthcare system that supports effective teamwork can improve the quality of patient care, enhance patient safety and reduce workloads that cause burnout among healthcare professionals (Oandasan, 2006). The 6 stages of Gibb’s cycle include description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action planning for future practice. I am going to reflect on the preparation work which was carried out each week for the group summative presentation and the importance of communication within the group.

Interprofessional Education, IPE event took place on July 22nd, 2016. The purpose of IPE is for us to learn how to work together as a health care team effectively collaborating with other health care members. In order to do so, each individual needed to understand not only his or her role and responsibility of a given role but also other team members’ roles and responsibilities. In our event, it was Interprofessional Health care Team Simulation with roles of a registered practical nurse and a Food Service supervisor, and a registered social worker and a personal support worker and a patient and her family member. We were given the scenario with the patient, Mrs. Johnston, 93 years old resident of a nursing home. My role was a RPN. The situation given was that we were asked by the patient’s family member to have a meeting with the health care team since her family member was concerned about her declining health status accompanied by her body weight loss.

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

Nurses play an important role in achieving the competencies of interprofessional collaboration, quality improvement, and human flourishing. Successful interprofessional collaboration requires the willingness to step outside of one’s comfort zone and initiate interactions with other professionals. Nurses must also possess a well-rounded understanding of patient needs in order to know which types of professionals with which to collaborate. Communication skills are

The National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standard 2 Partnering with Consumers requires all health professionals to provide consumer-centred care and to design the care in partnership with the patient and the family (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in health Care, 2012). The NSQHS Standards (2012) identified patient and family-centred care and engagement as one of the national priorities. As such, in order to improve patients’ safety outcomes and reduce hospital acquired conditions and readmissions and provide client centred services, the IPE recognized the need for effective interprofessional teams to collaborate and engage patients and families by implementing IPE core structures and processes (Brewer & Jones, 2013). The Curtin University’s ICF encompasses five interprofessional capabilities: “reflection, communication, team function, conflict resolution, and role clarification” (Brewer & Jones, 2013, p. e47). The purpose of ICF is to guide and assist health care students for collaborative practice to deliver safe and high quality care, and client-centred care (Curtin University, 2011). Therefore, health science students are expected to be competent in all skills and meet the criteria outlined in Curtin University’ ICF.

Interprofessional team collaboration for professional nurses is viewed as a method to improve the care and safety for patients. However, interprofessional team collaboration presents both advantages and challenges for nurses and other team members. One of the advantages is the coordination of care for the patient and the sharing of knowledge to improve the outcomes for the patient. Challenges for interprofessional team collaboration is: poor role-definition, miscommunication, conflict, lack of accountability for assignment of responsibilities and tasks (Reeves, 2012). This paper will discussion the role of a nurse on an interprofessional team and the challenges, why interprofessional teams promote patient safety, and strategies to promote success interprofessional teams.

This essay aims to provide a critical analyse upon interprofessional working in health care presenting it 's importance and identifying issues and barriers that impact on the patients ' treatment.

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.

Attending the “Interprofessional Education” (IPE) session was extremely beneficial and informational for me as an occupational therapy (OT) student. It was beneficial for me for one of two reasons: first it enabled me to inform and educate other professional students about OT. We are told in our program that many professions are unaware of what we do, and that we have to continuously advocate and educate others on what we do and why our profession is so important, in order to remain a profession. I was surprised to discover that so many different professions had never heard of OT. Many students thought OT was a branch of physical therapy, a career finding profession or had heard of OT but had no idea what it was. Secondly, it was beneficial for me to learn exactly what other professionals are doing and hear what their goals were in improving client care. Knowing what other professionals do will benefit my career so that I know who is writing the referrals and where I can refer my clients if needed to. In addition, when working on a health care team, aiming to be client centered, it is critical for each profession to be knowledgeable of one another so that each client is getting the maximal and most beneficial care needed.

Interprofessional Practice (IPP) occurs when different professional groups work together and rely on one another to accomplish common goals and improve healthcare outcomes. The way in which healthcare professionals interact and communicate with one another affects the quality of healthcare they provide and can effect patient care and safety (Australasian Interprofessional Practice and Education Network). Barriers to effective interprofessional practice between doctors and nurses have been well documented and include problem power dynamics, poor communication, lack of understanding of one another’s roles and responsibilities and from conflict arising due to different approaches to patient care (Zwarenstein, Goldman & Reeves, 2009)

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.

Interprofessional practice is a collaborative practice where multiple health professionals work together in health services to provide comprehensive services to their patients, families and communities to get a more effective result by improving the quality of work. The collaborative practise is basically used by the nursing team or other health care workers who are the member of interprofessional team. “A call for interprofessional team and collaborative practice development has been sounded across Canada because this model is viewed as the way to ensure that all professionals and providers can practice to the full potential of their role and competencies” (Potter, 2014). Interprofessional collaborative practice is a way to ensure that human health resources are used properly which help to decrease the duration time for achieving a quality care.

“Interprofessional working involves complex interactions between two or more members of different professional disciplines. It is a collaborative venture in which those involved share the common purpose of developing mutually negotiated goals achieved through agreed plans which are monitored and evaluated according to agreed procedures. This requires the pooling of knowledge and expertise to facilitate joint decision making based upon shared professional viewpoints” (Barrett, Sellman & Thomas, 2005, p18). How individuals collaborate and work towards a common goal for the benefit of the patient is essential for a swift recovery.

A weakness in communication between interdisciplinary team members can impact patient safety and health . A recent study revealed that out of all the claims analyzed , 57 percent of malpractice cases reflected miscommunication between two or more healthcare providers (Riah, 2015). In fact, the same communication failures directly linked to 1,744 deaths over the past five years (Budryk, 2016). During my clinical placement this semester I have witnessed the overwhelming number of health care team members that are involved in each patient’s care. I also take part in morning nursing rounds where all nurses are updated on every patient’s status. Transmission of permanent patient information is also relayed to all members of the health team via the patient chart .Here , interdisciplinary notes all come together to form updated health information on patients. However, although I have read interdisciplinary notes from all team members , I rarely have had the opportunity to personally communicate with members other than doctors and nurses. Personal communication allows for a team member to pass on relevant information in a timely manner without the possibility or misinterpretations. When communication is strictly done non-verbally, it is impossible to ask any questions.. This is why communication between professionals in health care is essential for patient safety and improved quality of care (Koivunen, Niemi., & Hupli,2015). There are 3 main factors that cause miscommunication