The Role of Health Disciplines - Essay Example

Running Head: UNDERSTAND THE ROLES OF HEALTH DISCIPLINES Understand the Role of Health Disciplines (Your School) Introduction The provision of health and human services is becoming more complicated and demanding by the day. This is not only a question of cost involved but the population is demanding quality and efficient services within a short period of time. The pressure is getting intense for the government and other stakeholders to provide affordable services to the people without necessarily compromising with efficiency. It is for this reason that an interdisciplinary approach to service delivery comes in handy to provide the way forward for a multifaceted market and challenges being experienced at the moment. Interdisciplinary approach refers to a combination of a number of technologies, professions, departments in industry or business. It is a model favored and used to solve some of the complex problems in the modern society. In health care the approach has seen an improvement of patient satisfaction, reduction in costs and morbidity (Allen and Nora, 2006). It also enhances relationships between various professionals in addition to overall satisfaction of the employees. Nevertheless there are a number of challenges including administrative constraints, lack of leadership etc but these difficulties cannot last a life time as efforts to try and educate the people early enough would effectively address these challenges. Interprofessional Practice and Models In order to solve some of the complex problems in the society there have been attempts to forge relationship between the various disciplines (Fleming, 2009). In the past, knowledge was perceived as whole but soon various disciplines started to gain individuality with each claiming to have a particular set of requirements, language and rules. However with time the various professions realize the importance of cooperation primarily to tackle complex problems and situations in the society. A multidisciplinary approach is whereby several disciplines are involved in solving societal problems. The individual disciplines do not lose their distinctiveness. One discipline known as the root discipline incorporates other disciplines to solve a problem. This means perspectives being shared are meant for the service of the root discipline (McGregor, 2004). On the other hand interdisciplinary approach allows for interaction between two or more disciplines. In this approach knowledge is transferred between disciplines as the group share assumptions and approaches for a better understanding of a problem. The end result is getting solutions to complex problems in society and the enhancement of views and perspectives of the various disciplines. Finally transdisciplinary approach involves a transverse between, across and beyond the disciplines (McGregor, 2004). There is creation of a new learning essential for bringing out solutions to the various challenges in the society. In brief the transdisciplinary approach comes up with a new way of viewing reality and nature as a whole. It is therefore broader in coverage and current compared to the other models. Merits of Interdisciplinary Teams The interdisciplinary approach has been important in a number of ways. This is especially so in solving some of the problems in society and the community as a whole. There has been a realization that for a multidimensional problem there needs to have an interdisciplinary approach. An epidemic such as obesity has seen the cooperation of the food industry, consumers, health care providers, academia and the government (Verduin, Agarwal and Waltman, 2005). Here the consumers, who are important players, have the responsibility to make the right choice of food to be consumed. On the other hand the food industry is to provide the consumers with food options that are healthy and also give credible information about their manufactured products. Similarly the government and health care professionals are to provide the consumers with vital information regarding the products. For instance the government will pressurize the food industry to ensure that foodstuffs are correctly labeled and meet the required standards. The consumers rely on the advice of health care professions before they purchase whatever they want to consume. According to research there has been much improvement among patients in both inpatient and special care units on the introduction of the interdisciplinary rounds (Watts and Jones, 2000). This is also true with the improvement of the satisfaction of the patients and a lowering of death and hospitalization rates. All this is courtesy of interdisciplinary team which reorganizes the ambulatory care to a basic preventive care service. In Ontario the there has been a call for collaboration in the mental health issue (Bourgeault and Mulvale, 2005). The various professions under the mental health care for instance psychiatry, psychology, family practice, social work and nursing have been called upon to work together in order to provide a good primary care for the patients. This collaboration according to the management is essential in treating whole patients. Specialists have also recognized serious mental illness is far too complicated for an individual to effectively handle. It is for this reason that collaboration among the related disciplines is called upon so as to give the professionals an easier time (Steiner, Ponce, Styron, Aklin, and Bruce, 2008). A positive outcome from the patients can only be guaranteed if the health professionals are able to work in collaboration. Individual members of the health care team received specific skills and knowledge thus allowing them to specialize in particular fields. A team work among these specialists will enhance the care that the professions are giving to the patients. In addition working as a team will in many ways help the members to supplement on each others weaknesses. In case the interdisciplinary teams become effective then they see to the improvement to the satisfaction of the patient, cuts on costs, enhance professional relationships and boost the overall satisfaction of the workers (Allen and Nora, 2006). There is corporate social responsibility which has seen the cooperation among companies, customers and the government to see to the challenges of global warming. In the past companies used to provide social amenities and auxiliary services as a way of giving back to the society. However, in the recent past this seem not to be enough and therefore there efforts to involve as many stakeholders as possible. For instance to confront global warming British Petroleum has seen some of its customers voluntarily pay more for some products in order to contribute to particular causes such as cleansing the environment, tree planting, sinking boreholes etc. The higher prices are optional and target customers who are passionate about a particular cause the company is promoting. In addition the company took on a vigorous campaign advertising its recent attempts to cut on the carbon emission. There are also catastrophes, national disasters and calamities in which the government has called upon individuals and corporate bodies to assist in trying to reach out to the affected families. Earlier experiences by the government have shown that in order for aid and other forms of assistance to reach the marginalized people and other displaced persons then a number of stakeholders have to come on board. The services of the doctors, rescuing personnel, human rights activists etc have to be well coordinated in order for the affected persons to benefit from the services in time. Challenges There are a number of problems facing interdisciplinary model and have become for a long time an impediment to the implementation of the model. The most notable ones include differentiation of status to the various disciplines, inequality in the awarding of benefits and the varied academic levels (Schofield and Amodeo, 1999). Team participation also involves some tensions as a result of differing administration and organization of each of the disciplines. The team members also have differing levels of commitment. This is basically due to absence of a well defined role of the leaders; sometimes the communication is inconsistent and ineffective. Similarly in this age of information technology, the knowledge and the jargon that come with disciplines is disparate. Occasionally there is confusion of roles, a sense of insecurity of the team members and lack of support from the administration. The other difficulties include lack of agreement over leadership and the tendency to compete over clients. Despite these bottlenecks still the interdisciplinary model has been important in solving most of the complex problems in the society (Interprofessional Health care In Australia, 2009). Conclusion The delivery of healthcare and other social services is becoming a complicated venture. This is as a result of many factors which include the ever rising costs, advancement in information technology, the hard economic times and the constant pressure from the public for an efficient and effective service. All these call for well trained, efficient and effective workers. The complicatedness of the problems requiring special attention means that only specialists will be needed to attend to specific cases. Health care professionals and social workers have to collaborate effectively in order to tackle the challenges posed by the new environment. It is for this reason that the interdisciplinary approach comes as a solution to the problem. The different disciplines have to learn how to work together in harmony and compliment one another. This will not only give them a relief but also allow them enough time to attend to their other needs. References Allen D, Penn M & Nora M. (2006). Interdisciplinary Healthcare Education: Fact or Fiction? American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. Vol.70 (2) 39 Retrieved on 9th September 2009 from file:///E:/article%20health%20care.htm Bourgeault I. L & Mulvale G. (2005). Collaboration in Primary Mental Health Care Delivery. Structural Barriers to Professional Integration in Ontario. International Professions Workshop, McMaster University. Retrieved on September 9, 2009 from http://www.health.uottawa.ca/profs/bourgeault/posters/Mulvalve.pdf Fleming, J. (2009). Health Care Workforce. In Interprofessional practice in health and Human Services HLT1IPB (pp. 2-29). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. (Reprinted from Health Care Practice in Australia: Policy, Context and Innovations, pp. 103-130, by S. Taylor, M. Foster, & J. Fleming, 2008, Melbourne: Oxford University Press) Interprofessional Health care In Australia (2009). The Way Forward. Retrieved on September 10, 2009 from http://www.education.uts.edu.au/research/downloads/ltipp-finalproposal.pdf Jones, K. & Creedy, D. (2009). Foundations of Professional Practice. In Interprofessional practice in health and human Services HLT1IPB (pp. 30-48). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. (Reprinted from Health and Human Behaviour, (2nd ed.), pp. 275-292, by K. Jones & D. Creedy, 2008, Melbourne: Oxford University Press) McGregor S. (2004). The Nature of Transdisciplinary Research and Practice. Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax. Retrieved on September 17, 2009 from http://www.kon.org/hswp/archive/transdiscipl.pdf Schofield F. R & Amodeo M. (1999). Interdisciplinary Teams in Health care and Human Services Settings: Are they Effective? Health and Social Work, Vol. 24 Retrieved on September 9, 2009 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb138/is_3_24/ai_n28740402/pg_10/ Steiner L. J, Ponce N.A, Styron T, Aklin E.E & Bruce E. W. (2008). Teaching an Interdisciplinary Approach to the Treatment of Chronic Mental Illness: Challenges and Rewards. Academic Psychiatry Vol. 32: 255-258, May-June. Verduin P., Agarwal S & Waltman S (2005). Science-Based Solutions to Obesity: What Are the Roles of Academia, Government, Industry, and Health Care? American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Vol. 82 (1). Retrieved on September 17, 2009 from http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/82/1/259S Watts B & Jones S. (2000). Inter-Professional Practice and Action Research: commonalities and parallels. Educational Action Research Vol. 8(2) 377-382 Read More