Interprofessional collaboration has become an accepted important component in healthcare. Engel and Prentice (2013) define interprofessonality as “the process by which professionals reflect on and develop ways of practicing that provides an integrated and cohesive answer to the needs of clients, family and populations” (p.429). This process involves continuous interaction and knowledge sharing between professionals, coming together in an organized system, to solve or explore a variety of patient care issues. Collaboration involves people interaction, who come together largely because they wish to do so, rather than mandated to do so, which invokes the idea of Aristotle’s virtue ethics or that good people do good things (Engel & Prentice, …show more content…
The interprofessional team consists of healthcare providers from medicine, nursing, therapeutic services, allied support and pharmacist. The role of the pharmacist in interprofessional collaboration along with an interview of a pharmacist will be defined in this paper. Pharmacist are essential members of the health care team who can help improve clinical outcomes, increase access to quality care, and contain cost.
Pharmacist have a unique opportunity to spearhead improvements in overall quality of care and to create a better coordinated healthcare system. These healthcare practitioners play a role in managing and modifying medication therapies, typically, in some form of collaboration with the prescribing physician (Guglielmo, 2012). Pharmacist can be a part of medical home teams and can help improve the health of high-risk patients and patients with chronic conditions in primary settings. Pharmacist can serve as medication-use system experts, meet pay-for performance measures, and prevent hospital readmissions (Carrion & Martin, 2015).
Interview Questions
R.H. (2016, March 15). Personal interview. Pharmacist and department chair Pharmacology Technician program provided responses to the following interview questions:
1. When asked about challenges faced in utilizing skills
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
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.
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.
As a clinician in a hospital, the pharmacist becomes a member of a professional healthcare team. In their clinical practice, pharmacists are directly involved in ensuring optimal medical therapy for patients by devising therapeutic regimens specific to individual patients. They also staff the Drug Information and Poison Centers whose task is to provide information to other healthcare professionals to assist with therapeutic decision making (uq, 2012).
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
Health care organizations and the way care is delivered is rapidly changing. Being able to manage, promote, and, facilitate interprofessional team work is essential for health care organizations to be successful. Team synergy for successful interprofessional teams means there is cooperation, collaboration, and the coordination of patient-centered care (LeBlanc, 2014). Working together toward a common goal is a common theme for successful interprofessional teams (Hart, 2015).
Thank you for reading my post. Indeed, trust and open communication are vital in health care interprofessionalism. The institutionalization of the opportunities for the teams to interact on a regular basis is gratifying to the members and also to the organization. The intent is to share perspectives (Clark, 2010 cited by Weiss et al 2014). The sharing of perspectives and the acceptance is built on team members trusting one another based on open and honest communication. Trust is truly an ethical principle that no leader would want to violate.
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
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.
Teamwork is vital in healthcare. When all participants are engaged in a program, goals are successfully achieved. Being able to communicate and work collectively as a team requires an appreciation for each other’s area of practice. Every team member has an important role and being acknowledged provides a sense of responsibility and accountability. Essentially, inter-professional collaboration helps ensure that the patient is getting care that is not only accessible but also comprehensive. The plan of a patients’ care includes active participation by all health care professionals working interdependently in accordance to the patient’s preferences, values and beliefs. The health care team accomplishes the goal of meeting the patient’s medical needs by delivering evidence-based practice. To deliver quality care, the patient should always be involved.
Where there is a shortfall in GP and nurse numbers, pharmacists occupy a unique position to offer support. GP-pharmacist collaboration can provide more patient-centric care, provide a more holistic approach to care and reduce prescribing and downstream care costs.
The last eight weeks’ of joining the applied organizational and leadership concepts class have imparted me with a well of knowledge on leadership concepts and styles in the health care settings. Most importantly is the significance of interprofessional collaboration in patients’ care. The in-depth learning of the interprofessional collaboration lesion and the additional input from other scholars in the class discussion has taught me the various benefits it brings in the management of
Numerous health care professionals and patients view pharmacists as the individuals who work in a retail setting and count pills or work in a lab. Making connections with other health care professionals will allow for them to truly understand our knowledge and skill set. These connections can be made through various residency programs, interprofessional education courses, and simply by having a face-to-face conversation and interaction with different health care professionals. Having these conversations will establish our credibility as current and future pharmacists and allow for different healthcare professionals to seek the help of pharmacist, therefore, increasing our outreach. The relationship with our patients can be increased by reaching out to them and making those connections. Although pharmacies can be extremely busy, it is important that we as future pharmacists take the time to really get to know and understand the patients we are treating. Additionally, we can talk with our friends and family and educate them about the various skills and knowledge that we have obtained through pharmacy school. As patients learn more about the knowledge and capacity that pharmacists have, there will be an increased amount of patients that seek this knowledge for
Pharmacists are healthcare professionals who have expertise in the field of medicine. They are responsible for the distribution of medicinal treatments to provide therapeutic improvement of a patient's health. When people think of a pharmacist, they picture someone behind a counter putting medication into a bottle that will then simply be handed to a patient. However, that assumption is incorrect. Pharmacists provide individualized service to all patients. Pharmacists work along other healthcare professionals to provide personal drug plans for each patient and monitor the effects of their treatment. Pharmacists can be seen working in various locations: hospitals, retail chains, care facilities, and