The Role of Interprofessional Practice in Nursing - Essay Example

? The Dimensions of Inter-Professional Practice inserts his/her inserts Grade inserts The Dimensions of Inter-Professional Practice The role of inter professional practice in nursing (protected meal times) Inter-Professional Practice can be described as an act of shared objectives, mutual respect, sharing of knowledge, experiences, and understanding of roles within the same professional group; which in our context is protected meal times (Rolfe, Freshwater & Jasper 2001). Inter-Professional Practice ultimately facilitates delivery and improvement of services offered in a way that, it incubates a collective objective and unity of purpose. In the event that a fully pledged professional unit can proactively interact and pursue a collective goal, there can be nothing much left but an ultimate accomplishment and realization of its success and smooth running (Rolfe, Freshwater & Jasper 2001). The role of inter professional practice protective meal times in UK hospitals The term protected mealtimes can be described to imply periods within the hospital setting when there are completely no urgent issues or activities at hand. During these times, patients are able to take their meals without interruption and staffs are readily available to offer help to those who need it. Research shows that patients whose mealtimes are protected eat more and are better nourished with improved chances of recovery. Protected meal times can influence achievement of benchmarks including conducive environment, assistance to eat and drink, obtaining food, and food presentation, monitoring, and eating to promote health. Older people admitted to hospital have malnutrition on arrival and most of them are at risk of becoming malnourished or their current nutritional state worsening in hospital, if precautions are not taken. Facilitation of protected meal times Inter-professional working team should facilitate implementation of protected mealtimes through the following ways. First, is by ensuring that patients are served with all the three basic meals of breakfast, lunch and dinner. They have to follow each mealtime with a one hour rest period for interaction with visitors, relatives and supporters. The team should also alter the drug delivery time so that patients are given food only after taking their meals and allowed to have enough rest. No other activity should be scheduled during mealtimes to ensure that all patients dedicate their time to meals and no other business. The team should plan to enhance service delivery by recommending a balanced diet and enhancing availability of patient assistants to offer services to patients who are not able to eat by themselves or in need varying assistance. The team should recommend that an audit be carried out after every two weeks to verify whether these rules and procedures of protected meal times are being followed (Rolfe, Freshwater & Jasper 2001). The following measures will be taken by our inter-professional team: There should be medical staff moving rounds, radiology focusing lunchtime slots on other areas, nurse routine- nurses want to get everything done, junior staff reluctant to challenge visitors and staff. The areas intended to put more emphasis include surgical areas, considering how protected mealtimes will interact with theatre lists, and wards which have greater impact on other departments like radiology. This should be followed by an audit to measure and review success in all these areas. There should be an arranged meeting with the hospital management to collaborate and ensure that the whole process is implemented. The unique role of the Inter-professional officials in the Inter-Professional Practice team is both individual and collective in that it takes one’s own conviction and commitment compounded by knowledge and professional experience to mould together with others like minded professional colleagues in order to achieve a set collective objective; which in our context is superior delivery of service in protected meal times (Schon 2003). There are various professional guidelines and policies which steer and ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of Inter-Professional Practice team. In order to ensure that the team of Inter-professional officials provides professionally valuable service and attention has to be put to their clients (Schon 2003). These policies and guidelines inform many skills in my placement area; United Kingdom (U.K) in that they create a meticulously stated and clearly specified code of conduct and ethics to which every practicing official within the Inter-Professional Practice must religiously and consciously abide and adhere to. In this aspect, every right minded staff member in the event of striving to meet the required threshold of conducting practice, results in an overall albeit healthy competition which in turn ensures efficient and effective service delivery to clients (Schon 2003). When members of the Inter-Professional Practice team walk the talk together which is their keys strength and value they impact positively on the much needed and expected care and service delivery (Schon 2003). This links is actually a clear link to the learning outcomes 2 as well as 3. PDSA cycle P- Involves planning for the change intended for implementation D- represents doing, i.e. implementing the change S-represents studying the data prior to and after implementing the change A- Represents action with regard to planning for the subsequent cycle of change Critical Reflection (Gibbs) Description of events Considering the above facts concerning interprofessional practice with focus on protected mealtimes, I strongly acknowledge that the elderly patients I have been caring for face what is termed as unprotected mealtimes (Rolfe, Freshwater & Jasper 2001). This follows the fact that these patients have been facing a lot of interruptions during mealtimes thus making the idea of protected mealtimes irrelevant for them. Feelings Equipped with the facts concerning the importance and implementation of protected mealtimes, I feel lots of shame and blame for not being responsible enough as a qualified nurse to ensure that these elderly patients enjoy protected mealtimes. In so doing, I felt how the elderly patients were feeling at time when they faced several interruptions while having their meals. I realized that this might have been the main reason why most of them could loose concentration on food and their appetite drastically affected (Schon 2003). Evaluation In order to improve the current situation and enhance protected mealtimes, I have to adopt various standards of practice and ensure that everybody is adhering to such practices. Other improvements will also be necessary to ensure that these elderly patients are less interrupted during mealtimes (Schon 2003). There are few barriers to implementation of protected mealtimes and these include hospital emergencies which interrupt the schedule of implementation of the program, there are also other disturbances which affect implementation. They include resistance from some staff members, lack of corporation and limited support by the management. I also noted that there is less communication and coordination among staff members which makes it difficult to implement protected mealtimes policies. Lack of understanding of the policy and its importance on the part of some healthcare professionals was also a drawback to the implementation of the policy (Rolfe, Freshwater & Jasper 2001). Analysis One of the most important aspects of nursing care provision is ensure that patients are having their meals with little or no interruption (Schon 2003). This can only be ensured if appropriate policies swill be formulated and implemented to alleviate the above barriers to the practice of protected mealtimes. We, as professional also have a greater part to play in the formulation of policies and ensuring that they are implemented and strictly adhered to. Nurses also have a role to play in ensuring that the nutrition and feeding habits of these elderly patients are improved and appropriately protected. Action Plan As an inter-professional team, we plan to improve this situation by enhancing awareness of the importance of the program of protected mealtimes in the nursing field and this will mobilize support and reduce resistance and other barriers to implementation (Rolfe, Freshwater & Jasper 2001). Personally, I feel that this program is beneficial to these elderly patients and will enhance their health as improve their chances of recovery while in the hospital. We also plan to cultivate a lot of the much needed confidence, additional knowledge, and the ultimate experience through networking which is pivotal in the transfer of newly gained knowledge into real and efficient practice (Schon 2003). All the healthcare professionals will be introduced to the policies required to enhance protected mealtimes. This action will be facilitated by the administration through creation of time to give room for the orientation process. The orientation process will involve lying out of the rules followed by teachings on how the rules can be applied appropriately. We plan to set frequent reminders to nurses and the entire healthcare fraternity will be enhanced to ensure that nurses are giving in their contributions towards ensuring protected mealtimes to these elderly patients (Rolfe, Freshwater & Jasper 2001). Personally, I benefited from the experience through gaining of extra confidence and ability to discharge inter-professional services in a group of clients. Conclusion In conclusion, Inter-Professional Practice in nursing is a very strategic measure which necessitates handling of various health problems and issues through formation of Inter-Professional Practice teams to enhance service delivery and idea sharing. The only requirement is to set the objectives right and focus the practices on the learning outcomes. Bibliography Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development, Oxford Polytechnic. London: Further Education Unit Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001). Critical Reflection for Nursing and the Helping Professions. Basingstoke, U.K: Palgrave. Schon, D. (2003). The Reflective Practitioner, How professionals think in action, Basic Books. Read More