The Role Of Nurses Within Interprofessional Teams

Changes in the late 1800's resulted in universities admitting women, thus allowing them to explore many more educational opportunities. These factors together provided the impetus for establishment of hospitals and schools to formally train nurses, with many schools opening for the first time in the 1870s. At the same time, though the need for nurses had been established and the importance of their role within the realm of medical care recognized, there was a great deal of opposition to the proposal that nurses should be formally educated. This attitude was epitomized by a well-known article of the time published in 1908, 'The over-trained nurse' in which the author asserted that nursing was not a “profession” but merely an “honorable calling”. Consistent with this notion, public perception viewed nursing as a job that women were generally suited to perform rather than one which required special skill and was even equated with a religious “calling”. This view, influenced by early nursing's relationship with religious orders remained far into the 20th century.(Lasseter, 1999).

Interprofessional working is defined as ‘persons belonging to a profession, relating between and among each other, for the mutual benefit of those involved’ (Day, 2006), whilst attempting to improve the quality of patient care and unite the multidisciplinary team to focus on patient centred, excellent care (Goodman & Clemow, 2010). Interprofessional workers in the healthcare setting can include nursing staff from all fields; adult, mental health, learning disabilities and paediatrics, as well as the wider multidisciplinary team within the ward setting, such as occupational therapists, physiotherapists, doctors, podiatrists, furthermore, expanding from the ward setting to include community nurses, social workers, health visitors and midwives. Interprofessional working enables and encourages these professionals to combine their values and beliefs to focus on the patients and to deliver excellent, patient centred care. This therefore allows them to share a common purpose and goal whilst combining their knowledge, skills and resources as a team (Day, 2006).

When people think about nurses, many ideas come to mind. They think of the hideous old starched, white uniforms, a doctor’s handmaiden, the sexy or naughty nurse, or a torturer. The media and society have manipulated the identity and role of nurses. None of these ideas truly portray nurses and what they do. Nurses are with the patients more than the doctors. People do not realize how little they will encounter the doctor in the hospital until they are actually in the hospital. People quickly realize how important nurses are. Because nurses interact with their patients constantly, nurses are the ones who know the patients best.

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

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

To understand the term “Interprofessional team working” I have been working within a subset group where everyone has a different health profession background course such as child nursing, social worker, occupational therapist and myself as an adult nursing. On part 1, I will be discussing about themes social policy and culture and diversity. And on part 2, I will reflect my team working using different models and will mention our strength and weakness.

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.

It's important for nurses to be actively involved with an interdisciplinary team because of the increasing complexity and scope of patient problems. As these complexities and problems increase, patient care necessitates the combination of efforts of physicians from different disciplines. Actually, comprehensive patient care in today's healthcare settings incorporates attempts to solve problems that are beyond the scope of expertise and training of a single professional. Therefore, the active involvement of nurses in interdisciplinary teams is vital for the provision of comprehensive and effective patient care that help in dealing with the evolving patient problems

This week’s assigned readings focus on the importance of inter-professional teamwork and collaboration within the healthcare environment. Porter-O Grady describes in the readings that the complex nature of our healthcare system and the complex needs of patients call for a multifaceted approach to patient care (2013). This is greatly because current healthcare practices often necessitate for patients to obtain care from various care settings and from various specialties, making it nearly impossible for one discipline to effectively meet all of the patient’s needs (Porter-O Grady,2013). Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) supports a multifaceted approach to care and is defined by Kara et al. (2015) as the process through which different discplines

Kaakinen et al (2015) discusses the two types of health care teams that will be involved in the patient’s care: multiprofessional and interprofessional. The multiprofessional model is an older model that does not focus on holistic care. Care is fragmented with an autocratic leader, vertical communication, separate goals of the professionals involved, and families are peripheral to the process (Kaakinen et al., 2015). The preferred model is the interprofessional model emphasizing a team approach, holistic care of the patient, horizontal communication, and involvement of the family (Kaakinen et al., 2015). The nurse should keep this collaborative approach in mind when dealing with any patient case, involving all teams associated with the patient for the best outcome.

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).

“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.

Nursing is a demanding profession, with a great deal of pressure to make the right decisions and work effectively with a group of knowledgeable individuals, all with varying values, beliefs, and goals. Although the goals and priorities of nurses and the inter-professional team are usually clear, we all work from different forms of knowledge. “This different knowledge arises out of the unique standpoints from which nurses experience their work and their patients” (Hamilton & Campbell, 2011, p. 283). However, dynamics exist that can privilege some forms of knowledge while subordinating other types of knowledge. Therefore, it is essential that I develop confidence in my professional comportment, find ways to promote my knowledge, strengthen my nursing standpoint, all while working collaboratively as a professional. In this paper, I will reflect on the growth and development I have experienced as a result of the concepts taught in Nursing 341.