Inter-professional Collaboration - Essay Example

? CONSIDERING THE EXPERIENCE OF INTERPROFESSIONAL COLLABORATION IN YOUR AREA OF CLINICAL EXPERIENCE BY SUBMISSION Inter-professional collaboration is significant in the provision of quality care in the healthcare system. Even though, there are numerous ways to describe inter-professional collaboration in the provision of health services, for the present paper collaboration of health service providers can be defined as “working together with one or more members of the health care team who each make a unique contribution to achieving a common goal. Each individual contributes from within the limits of her/his scope of practice” (Canadian Physiotherapy Association 2009). It refers to situation when a number of professionals work with one another to enhance cooperation and the quality of care (Pungo n.d.). The collaborative process has also been defined as a dynamic process which requires that professional boundaries be surpassed if each participant is to contribute to developments in patient care while appropriately bearing in mind the qualities and skills of the other professionals (Canadian Physiotherapy Association 2009). Inter-professional collaboration is a process for communication and decision-making that encourages active involvement of each and every dimension in patient care and expands patient and family focused objectives and values. It allows for flexible and synchronized services and a capable and receptive workforce. Mutual understanding and group effort builds up effective multidisciplinary teams. This permits professionals to work beyond the limitations of traditionally ascribed roles, and facilitates efficient role substitution. This offers healthcare professionals with the imperative support of skilled workforce, for example nurse practitioners, pharmacists, etc. Similarly, inter-professional collaboration illustrates the interactions among individual professionals who might stand for a certain discipline or branch of knowledge, but who additionally bring their exceptional educational backgrounds, experiences, principles, responsibilities, and uniqueness to the process. It deals with phenomena of mutual respect, maximum utilization of resources, and understanding of individual responsibilities, and competence and skills within respective disciplines. It entails trust, communication, respect and fairness behind the professional relationship where different healthcare professionals work together to offer the best possible care to their patient (Martin et al. 2010). The phenomenon of inter-professional collaboration to enhance health outcomes is not novel; it has been and continues to be the foundation of the healthcare system. Public health collaborations comprise of not only the certified professionals but also systems of communities, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and private sector groups to deal with multifaceted health outcome (Zaccagnini & White, K 2010, p. 240). Previous research illustrates that collaboration entails common acknowledgement, consideration and respect for complementary roles, skills, and abilities of the inter-professional team (Zaccagnini & White 2010, p. 238). Effective collaborative partnerships support quality and lucrative care through a planned process that permits members to trade important knowledge and thoughts and later participate in a process of mutual decision making (Zaccagnini & White, K 2010, p. 238). The Institute of Medicine’s (OIM) 2001 report focuses on inter-professional collaboration and stresses the need for care givers and institutions to actively cooperate with each other, trade information, and make provisions for care coordination because the needs of any persons or population are outside the expertise of any solitary health profession. Accrediting and regulatory agencies identify inter-professional collaboration as a necessary part of the avoidance of medical mistakes. It aims at enhancing communication and teamwork among care givers, personnel, and patients as ways to better protect patients from harm (Institute of Medicine 2001). The challenges faced by the healthcare system are on a rise. A shared paradigm can enhance patient care and meet the challenges that the system is dealing with. This inter-professional care will facilitate the delivery of complete health services to patients by a number of health providers who join hands to offer exceptional care within and across settings. Inter-professional care can be systemically put into practice to help in health care system regeneration and enhanced sustainability. People always work in collective surroundings with continuous interactions with others. These interactions take different shapes, one of which is collaboration. Collaboration puts across the notion of a joint action towards a shared outcome especially in regards to health professionals (Dimitriadou 2008). Even though, a number of organizations undergo lack of support for a synchronized paradigm, enhanced coordination and teamwork through inter-professional care will assist healthcare providers to work more efficiently by helping to administer increasing workloads, decrease wait times and decrease patients’ possibility of suffering unfavorable reactions due to the care they receive. There is an extensive literature on the issue of significance of inter-professional collaboration in effective patient care, varying from the views of individual professionals to documents from health authorities and international agencies. The aim relate to advantages for patients, clients and support for care givers; prevention of stress and enhanced jab satisfaction for professionals and ultimately effective health and social car (Healthcare in Rural Setting 2005). Patients, clients and their care givers take advantage from becoming ‘members of the team’. They need to be assured that their personal situations, feelings and likes/dislikes are recognized and acted upon. Collaboration with patients, clients and care givers can therefore result in informed consent and informed compliance with mutually agreed treatment programs. Bearing in mind the psychosocial, as well as the biological/material facets of care are thus of great significance for inter-professional collaboration with patients, clients and care givers. Collaboration between professionals is cultivated by an acknowledgement of each other’s expert contributions, agreement on the intents and goals regarding a patient or client and agreed allocation of roles and responsibilities regarding an agreed plan of action (Kenny 2002). There is increasing evidence that an inter-professional care setting might provide numerous benefits such as increased access to healthcare, improved outcomes for individuals with chronic diseases, less stress and disagreement among caregivers, enhanced utilization of clinical resources, and easier staffing of caregivers and reduced rates of employee turnover. Furthermore, the literature of past two decades offers numerous benefits of collaborative practices, including less error, decreased length of stay, improved health, better pain management, enhanced quality of life, and greater patient satisfaction. Healthcare providers must possess the skills and abilities to apply inter-professional care in their specific fields. It is recognized that inter-professional education and inter-professional care must be offered at the same time to achieve the desired outcomes (Kenny 2002). The required satisfaction for professionals, patients, clients and care givers will be gained from continuous sharing of information. This, in turn, relies on mutual trust, an interpersonal relationship that requires time and effort for its growth and maintenance. A system where all health professionals can perform to their fullest degree of their training and ability as part of an integrated and collaborative health care team is solution to improving access to flawless, effective, patient-centered care. To provide this kind of care, health care professionals must be able to perform to the utmost level of their personal areas of expertise (Martin et al. 2010). In spite of the mandates or suggestions put forward by numerous organizations, effective inter-professional collaboration has yet to be implemented in any widespread form around the world to improve patient or population outcomes. Literature from UK makes recommendations for inter-professional collaboration to improve care, along with existing thinking as to why healthcare systems have not taken up inter-professional healthcare teams. Some of the obstacles to inter-professional collaboration consist of (Zaccagnini & White 2010, p. 241): 1. Gender, power, socialization, education, socio-economic status, and cultural diversity among professions; 2. Lack of a compensation system and arrangements that offer invectives to inter-professional collaboration; 3. The misinterpretation of the scope and involvement of each profession, and 4. Protection of territory. (Zaccagnini & White 2010, p. 241) Similarly, there is resistance to change as creating an inter-professional care environment within and across care delivery settings demands radical transformation in the way care is presently provided. Health providers will need to assume common patient care goals and help take over the silos and power structures that hinder inter-professional care (College of Nurses of Ontario 2008). Furthermore, educating health providers regarding inter-professional care curriculum has been difficult. It has been challenging to integrate these types of programs into programs offered by educational institutions so that health providers can acquire the education and training required to implement an inter-professional care setting (College of Nurses of Ontario 2008. Moreover, due to the lack of training in inter-professional collaboration communication difficulties can also arise which can result in disrupting the timeliness of provision of the service (Kenny 2002). Differing professional views can also give rise to conflict between caregivers that might influence the quality of the decision of the health provides (Kenny 2002). Therefore, numerous variables and challenges are at play in the existing health care system that hinders the successful implementation of inter-professional care (Kenny 2002). The difficulties that the health care system deals with in providing quality, patient-centered care through an inter-professional care approach can be conquered (Leathard, 2003, p. 80). For To overcome these challenges, the healthcare system requires a broad understanding of these obstacles in order to offer fresh, creative thinking, and leadership for healthy growth and sustainment of collaboration (Dimitriadou 2008). The system needs to work together to deal with these challenges and create solutions for the successful implementation of inter-professional care (Dimitriadou 2008). In order to gauge the effectiveness of the inter-professional care received by a patient in my area of clinical experience, I chose Ms. Reed who came to the Royal Eye Hospital with pain and redness in the right eye. Ms. Reed is a pseudonym for the patient because according to the code of confidentiality in the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2008); a patient has the right to have his/her right to confidentiality respected. At the time Ms. Reed came, I was working in the outpatients department with other qualified nurses. Because the value of relations and teamwork between employees of an organization determines the fulfillment of their goals and in multidisciplinary health care settings, the inter-professional collaboration and the collaboration among nurses is necessary for their effective performance (Dimitriadou 2008), therefore, all the on-duty nurses ensured that the patient was provided with the required help and care. One of the nurses acquired personal information and medical history after which the patient was carefully examined and routine tests were carried out. In order to gain a definite diagnosis for her condition, Ms Reed was referred to an ophthalmologist who explained to her the seriousness of her condition after looking at the reports. The role of an ophthalmologist is to prevent misdiagnosis and mismanagement. The ophthalmologist explained different options to Ms. Reed regarding her eye treatment in a manner that was clear and understandable. The reason behind explaining the situation to the patient was because the patient is an important member of the inter-professional collaboration because without him/her effective patient care cannot be achieved (Martin 2010). Due to the seriousness of her condition, it was agreed that an operation was necessary. After discussing the pos and cons of the operation, Ms. Reed was asked whether she would like to undertake a day case surgery in which “a patient who is admitted for operation on a planned non resident basis and who non the less requires facilities for recovery” (Royal College of Surgeons of England 1992, p.3). After gaining her consent, she was introduced to the surgeon who would perform the operation. The surgeon informed her about the procedure and answered her questions regarding the surgery. Allowing patients to ask questions about their surgeries satisfies their need for information and reduce their pre-operative anxiety. Furthermore, collaboration among patients and healthcare providers can result in informed consent and informed compliance with mutually agreed treatment programs (Dimitriadou 2008). All through the process, the nurses remained very attentive and thorough with the pre-operational tests. The World Health Organization supports that while taking care of patients, nurses work with other individuals in the health care team such as doctors, other nurses and any other experts involved in the patient’s care. Thus, in many hospitals today the healthcare team works together on a plan of action for the patient (WHO 1997). Furthermore, as the collaboration between the nurses and between nurses and doctors is vital for patient care and has a significant influence on the wellbeing of the patient (Dimitriadou 2008), therefore, the nurses and the doctors made sure that there was no communication gap between themselves or with the patient which was ensured through continuous sharing of information. Thus, in my opinion and as it is clear from the above-mentioned case, the communication and efficiency in the department was exemplary which in turn provided the patient with quality health care. Conclusion In conclusion, inter-professional collaboration is a vital issue in programs formulated to increase the effectiveness of health services currently offered to patients and has been created mainly to improve patient care outcomes. The future of healthcare provision needs inter-professional teams who are ready to deal with the diverse, complex health issues of the population. Healthcare providers, policy makers, and health systems are required to shift their way of thinking from long-established paradigms of disease-focused care to new delivery paradigms. In a new approach, each field contributes different skills and abilities, performances at the highest level of the healthcare providers, takes on new roles and takes part in a collaborative manner with other professionals to deliver high-quality, safe, lucrative, patient-focused care. References Canadian Physiotherapy Association. (2009). Position Statement. [Online]. 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London: Royal College of Surgeons of England. WHO (1997). Nursing care of the sick: a guide for nurses working in small rural hospitals. Western Pacific Education in Action Series, No12. Zaccagnini, M. E. and White, K. W. (2010) The doctor of nursing practice essentials: a new model for advanced practice nursing. Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Read More