Interprofessional Working

Interprofessional practice for the professional nurse can be defined as collaboration and shared decision making with other health care professionals to improve care and provide safe outcomes for patients. Since nurse are central to the care of the patient, they are often viewed as the communicator and the coordinator of the patient’s care (Burzotta & Nobel, 2011). Nurses have a unique opportunity as a interprofessional team member given their scope of knowledge about the patient. However, nurses struggle with role-identify when a part of an interprofessional team. The work of nurses do is often viewed as non-professional and more task driven by

This is a reflective essay based on a event which took place in a hospital setting. The aim of this essay is to explore how members of the Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) worked together and communicate with each other to achieve the best patients outcome.

In the beginning of this activity, I did not know much about collaboration between different healthcare professionals. It helped me to clarify the meaning of a healthcare team and also to understand the role of different professionals in the team. Different team members have their specific roles and all of them work together to achieve a common goal –healthier patient. They work independently, but when it comes to decision making they seek advice from other healthcare provider in order to do the best for the patient. Not only doctor, physiotherapists, pharmacists and etc. are considered being part of the team. Patients must also be considered part of the decision making process,

Teams working in a hospital or other healthcare setting may consist of several physicians, nurses, medical assistants, referral coordinators, pharmacists, therapists, and students among others. Such large teams can provide comprehensive care for complex and chronic illnesses, but when they fail to work well together, they

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.

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

According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, most healthcare professionals are not trained to work in interprofessional teams.1 Due to this, it is negatively impacting the quality of care we give our patients. The lack of communication and respect for others is potentially putting the patient at harm. For example, test results are not being shared, other helpful opinions are not being heard, unnecessary costs are being added and trust is being lost. This is very surprising to me because every healthcare professional’s goal and focus should be on healing the patient. When collaboration with others is needed, it should be looked upon as equal as a treatment, a diagnosis and a test.

Great post Jen! I like how you define inter professional collaboration. It made it easy to understand the discussion question better. As the definition from the World Health Organization implies, Health care workers come together to ensure the best possible outcome for patients and family members. The changing process requires an all-hands on deck approach as we learned some weeks ago. This is part of the reason why one of the important quality of the future nurse is teamwork and collaboration: Nurse of the Future competency (QSEN,

“To become a high-performing team the team must be competent at goal setting, making assignments and ensuring that team members have the skills to complete them, consensus decision making, setting high standards, holding people accountable, and running effective meetings” (Dyer, Dyer, & Dyer, 2007, p. 74). In the article, “Professionals’ Views on Interprofessional Stroke Team Functioning” Jane Cramm & Anna Nieboer (2011) seek to explain that interprofessional teamwork is considered the core component of integrated care, a complex activity involving many different health care providers that demands effective team functioning (p. 1-2). And in the article, “The Role of Oncologists in Multidisciplinary Cancer Teams in the UK: An Untapped

According to American Nurses Association (2010) Scope and Standards of Nursing Practice, collaboration is defined as, “a professional healthcare partnership grounded in a reciprocal and respectful recognition and acceptance of: each partner’s unique expertise, power, and sphere of influence and responsibilities; commonality of goals; the mutual safeguarding of the legitimate interest of each party; and the advantages of such a relationship”.(p. 64). Collaboration amongst health care providers is very crucial in providing quality care to patients. Integration of disciplinary teams, improves communication, coordination, and most importantly, the safety and quality of patient care. It provides interaction between team members allowing

From this class I understood that Interprofessional Education (IPE) is when two or more profession learn from, with and about each other. This collaboration is important in order to fulfill the patients’ needs that are becoming more complex, multi-faced and challenging day by day. It is also clear to me that no single profession in healthcare can adequately address all the demands of patients. Therefore, partnership between teams is required to provide a safe, timely, effective and equitable patient care. To have a smooth collaboration, it is necessary to learn from each other’s specializations, strength and experiences. In the real world, healthcare is an interdisciplinary team effort to provide the best possible service to a patient based on evidence based practices. Considering this, I had the

Working in a team is an important responsibility by understanding each other’s role which may include doctor, nurse, occupational therapist, physiotherapist and many more. Team members divide the work based on their scope practice such as acute care, metal health care, homecare etc. Interprofessional collaboration practice is decision making and communicating between individuals for their patient’s health based on their knowledge and skills. It helps to promote habits, maximizing health resources, leading care to be safer with patient’s satisfaction and Canada’s health care (Kenaszchuk, Reeves, Nicholas, & Zwarenstein, 2010).

With an ongoing, aging population and a vast growth of chronic illness due to so many incorrect approaches to basic maintenance of life, these vast growing chronic illnesses are now becoming chronic diseases (UQ Health, 2010). Due to increases, our health care system needs the variety of health professionals on board to tackle such a destructive problem. The power of a large group of professionals is referred to as inter-professional practice (IPP). Research shows that a patient’s outcome reflects greatly by team care and the improvement is significant (UQ Health, 2010). A patient is also part of the health care team, and has become an integral part of the health care system. Patients are active participants rather than passive recipients (UQ Health, 2010). Therefore a quicker and more effective recovery, by getting back to their regular routines more efficient (UQ Health, 2010). As part of the IPP, there are many roles and responsibilities formed by different health professions, which all play relevant parts in the system (Fox & Gilbert, (2015). The use of inter-professional communication is highly important, as the best possible outcome is wanted for patients. Communication from each profession is vital (UQ Health, 2010).

Teamwork and collaboration with other healthcare providers is very important. To function effectively there needs to be mutual respect, open communication, and shared decision making in the best interest of the patient. As a member of a team it is vital to know ones own strengths and limitations, this way patients receive the best care.

“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