Summary: Interprofessional Collaboration

The difference between interdisciplinary teams and Interprofessional teams is that interdisciplinary team perform their work in a collaborative fashion. Each member of the team, while providing the group with the knowledge and skills of his or her disciplinary perspective, also strives to incorporate that perspective with those of others to create solutions to health care problems that transcend conventional, discipline-specific method, procedures, and techniques. Communication by far is essential to collaboration and interaction. However, Interprofessional teams has to do with learning together as a team. Their collaboration interaction is characterized by the integration as well as modification of different professions. By having basic knowledge and skills related to your own profession you can share your knowledge with others as they will do the

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)

Healthcare is continuously changing with the modern times and whilst there have been many advancements in technologies and techniques; the roles of health care professionals have also changed significantly and the crucial need for inter-professional practice emerged. Interprofessional practice is essential as there is no single profession that can meet all of a patient's needs. (Matziou et al., 2014) For an effective interprofessional collaboration, it is essential that all professionals have a clear definition, awareness, and recognition of each profession and they are able to communicate effectively between different professions (Caldwell and Atwal, 2003). This essay will explain interprofessional practice and why it is essential for quality health outcomes, outline the roles and responsibilities of several health care professions and discuss the importance of interprofessional communication.

It is true that collaboration between healthcare leaders and providers is essential for effective and efficient care delivery. However, “the ability to collaborate consistently, and in a way that ensures quality care, continues to elude” (Bankston & Glazer, 2010, p.1). This is as a result of insignificant interdisciplinary challenge for nurses, providers, and leaders in today’s healthcare. The openness and autonomy of bringing healthcare leaders, and healthcare professionals is to achieve positive patient outcomes. Bankston et al. declared that “one approach to bridging this interprofessional-collaboration gap could be the development of partnerships to facilitate the creation of interdisciplinary laboratories, sometimes called “collaboratories,”

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).

As a future nurse, I find it very important and beneficial to have been given the opportunity to learn about, and participate in, interprofessional collaboration while still in nursing school. Before starting this course, it never really crossed my mind as to how much I would need to communicate and collaborate with other disciplines within the health care team while caring for my patients. Within the short time I spent with multiple different disciplines in my IPE clinical at Methodist Hospital, I was able to get a glimpse into what their roles and responsibilities were and how that related to and intertwined with the nurse’s roles and responsibilities. Interprofessional collaboration has been defined as “nurses and physicians working together, sharing responsibilities for solving problems, and making decisions to formulate and carry out plans for patient care” (Muller-Juge et al., 2013, p.1). Interprofessional communication and collaboration is extremely important in patient care because proper communication and collaboration between physicians, nurses, social workers, and any other members of the health care team, is imperative to keeping one another informed and, more

The delivery of safe, affordable and quality healthcare to clients is an integral part in today`s health care. In order to provide the aforementioned care; inter-professional (IP) collaboration of the health care members is essential. The need for IP collaboration has been identified by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the federal government, the Department of Health and Human Services. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) has identified the IP collaboration as an essential element of nursing education in the AACN Essential Series (Messer, n.d.). Evidence suggests that the collaboration among health professionals has been associated positively with patient outcomes in the operating room, the emergency

Interprofessional practice is widely researched, and is held in high regard within education and policy; the issue is the lack of evidence of this collaboration being implemented within the health care system and hospitals (Kenny, 2002). Multidisciplinary care allows for multiple professions to work alongside each other, while working towards their own individual goals. Meanwhile, interprofessional practice involves all professionals working together as a team towards one goal, which is the overall health of the patient (Botten, 2012). Kenny (2002) suggests that interprofessional practice is an opportunity to diminish any power barriers, and considers all other professionals roles and responsibilities. This allows different professions to care for a patient based on their education, skills, specialties, and experiences. Botten (2012) proposes that this leads to a number of different perspectives, shared responsibilities, a decrease in medical errors and enhanced staff morale. The concept of different professionals working together is crucial in patient care because as stated previously, not one profession could possibly care for all of the needs of modern patients (Hilton et al., 2002). Research suggests that one reason for not implementing interprofessional practice is the

This paper address the lack of communication between interdicinplnary staff and the patients they care for also the significance of the care giver when patient enter an ICU setting. There are several problems that can occur to patient in an ICU setting when communication between collaborative care is broken down. The biggest issue can be death when this happens or even patient injuries which are two of the biggest concerns when it comes to care of patients. “Notably, when asked to evaluate interprofessional collaboration, nurses consistently rate is lower than doctors, suggesting discipline-specific perspectives on the nature of collaboration (Baggs, Miller, Sexton,2002).” Showing that nurses and physicians are where the problems seems to lye

Registered nurses and members of various professions exchange knowledge and ideas about how to deliver high quality health care, resulting in overlaps and constantly changing professional practice boundaries. This inter-professional team collaboration involves recognition of the expertise of others within and outside one’s profession and referral to those providers when appropriate. (American Nurses Association, 2010, p. 33)

An imperative element of Interprofessional practice is communication, that not only between patients, but also between healthcare colleagues. Communication restricts, controls and determines the timing and amount of practitioner intervention– making it essential that consistent interaction between other healthcare professionals occurs to prevent ill management of the patient. A journal article titled “Role understanding and effective communication as core competencies for collaborative practice” written by Suter et al. in 2009 describes team meetings and shared patient data as two simple procedures that involve and prepare members to meticulously care for their patients, referencing also Interprofessional worker’s appreciation for any disposition to learn, adapt and improve professionally and clinically during care. The process of referrals also plays a large part in communication.

Acutely ill cancer clients are increasingly being treated as outpatients due to the increasing patient volume. Recently, the bulk oncology services shifted to outpatient settings, for example, physician offices, clinics, and cancer centers (Basic Infection Control and Prevention Plan for Outpatient Oncology Settings, 2016). According to Lee, Doran, Torangeau, & Fleshner, high quality interactions impact client care (2014). Therefore it is significant to gain insight on the interprofessional collaboration of outpatient oncology clinics.

Interprofessional competency education is essential to patient quality outcomes because as stated in the Institute of medicine’s report patients have complex medical issues that can best be addressed by interprofessional teams. By training current and future health care workers to work in such teams we facilitate the model and the results is improved healthcare outcomes for patients. The model help professionals to understand the important role each person adds to the team.

As healthcare advances and becomes more convoluted there is an increase need for interprofessional collaboration to provide quality and patient-centered care. According to the Institute of Medicine (2015), not one profession can lead and expand interprofessional collaboration independently. It requires collaboration of all team members working to their highest level of functioning to provide patient centered care. Interprofessional collaboration involves healthcare professionals from multi-disciplinary teams with one common goal of providing excellent care to patients. To provide the best patient-centered and team based care all of the team members have to be in sync and willing

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,