The Dynamics of Inter-Professional Relationships - Essay Example

The Dynamics of Inter-Professional Relationships There are certain professions in which the professional working in the working environment does not need to directly interact with the customer or the people they wish to benefit. For example in most business setting workplaces or engineering firms, the client will have minimal interaction with the working professionals, save but one or two people. In other cases, the professional is expected to go on site to the consumer's setting rather than have the latter invited to the former's. Examples of this would include professions such as interior designing or perhaps construction work. In these types of professions, there is a strictly one-on-one relationship. That is to say, one consumer is dealt with by one professional, and that consumer is not directly concerned with the other professionals in that particular workplace. Another example of professions however is one where an entire setting is expected to cater to the needs of one person, as a collective and collaborative team effort. The most prime example of this is any profession related to the medical sector, be it a doctor, a physiotherapist, or most importantly a nurse. In these sort of professions, inter-professional relationships are extremely important to consider and in fact can be the key to successful collaboration and would therefore have a direct impact on the comfort and satisfaction of the patient. This begs the questions of what exactly inter-professional working is. Loosely defined, the concept of various professionals working together towards the care of one particular patient is referred to as inter-professional working. More specifically, the definition of inter-professional working, as defined by Waddingtion (2007) is '…care which involves professionals from different disciplinary backgrounds (e.g. nursing, social work, medicine and physiotherapy) working together more effectively, often in teams, to improve the quality of care provided to individuals, families and communities'. In other words, inter-professional working involves professionals collaborating to work together more effectively to improve the quality of patient care. Although the practice is age old in specialized fields such as the medical field, official recognition of the term and a deeper study into the development of these inter-professional relationships began after an NHS developed research study in 2000. Official education being imparted to develop inter-professional relationships and the effect on a patient's care were examined and methods were researched on making these relationships more effective towards a patient's benefit. Inter-professional relationships, as mentioned, is basically emphasis on a collaborative collective effort rather than an individual one. Which means, that instead of having each professional only concerned with his own area of interest, each would have a fairly sound level of knowledge about each area of interest, thereby enabling them to have greater confidence in their own area and work in harmony with other professionals working towards the care of a patient. As stated by Mahmood-Yousuf (2008) this also means that it encourages a team of professionals to share knowledge and therefore to have more sound knowledge and understanding of the medical issues at hand, which in turn enables them to take improved decisions in regard to the patient's health, not only in accordance to their own area of expertise, but rather in a general light. Sherwin (2009) reiterates this view and in addition says that it provides more confidence to the professional as well, since they have a fair amount of trust on the fact that their decision will not conflict with any other decision in regard to the patient. In the long run, this would increase job satisfaction and reduce situations where conflict arises between two professionals working on a patient. In direct regard to nursing, this is especially important because while a doctor imparts primary medical care to the patient, it is the nurse who delivers this care. Therefore it is necessary for a nurse to understand this care and fill the gaps in where a doctor may be unavailable or where direct decisions need to be made in urgency. For inter-professional relationships to be successful it is necessary to have flexibility of thought, enabling one to think across various fields of expertise, and the ability to then adapt to these thoughts and develop accordingly. This means having a broader approach to the various zones around a professional, and think outside what they are most familiar with in their own comfort zone. Unless this is done, the professional's thinking will be incomplete and stifled will lead to partial or unsuccessful inter-professional working. Also, considerable study needs to be conducted on the matter so that it is adopted successfully into a workplace and not partially, as otherwise there might be drastic consequences of ineffective and inadequate care delivered by an uninformed professional (D'Amour, 2005). However there are certain barriers that may be encountered when looking to develop inter-professional skills and adopt them in the nursing or medical workplace. To start with, and most obviously, if professionals are reluctant to, or conversely not particularly enthusiastic to impart their own knowledge with others in a similar area of expertise, a collaborative effort will naturally be impossible. This may happen if professionals do not understand the benefits of inter-professional relationships, or may feel that their own individual contribution will be undermined, and are therefore reluctant to have someone else intervene in there area of experiment. Nurses in particular may have issues in adapting to the inter-professional form of collaborative working as the general stereotype and default thinking is that nursing is one form of medical care, where a nurse is expected to focus on a patient's needs and comforts, while a doctor's work is an independent, different one, focusing more on the medical aspect at hand. For effective care however this is naturally not true as both have a certain level of professional concern with the other. The importance of inter-professional working can be best viewed through examples where it was tragically lacking. These examples most popularly include the cases of Baby Peter and Victoria Climbie. The death of 17 month old Peter Connelly, or Baby P as he came to be known, in London in 2009, sparked national outrage and led to considerable social reforms. Despite having been regularly monitored by Haringey Childern's Services and the NHS health professionals, over a period of 8 months, Peter's guardians managed to sustain over 50 injuries on the baby, ultimately resulting in his death. Tragically, the same healthcare and child support societies that were supposedly keeping track of the welfare of Baby P had done the same negligence almost a decade earlier in the case of Victoria Climbie. Victoria Climbie was an 8 year old resident of London who was murdered by her guardians in 2008 after years of abuse. During the years before her abuse, Victoria Climbie had contact with the social services department of not one, but four national authorities, the National Health Service, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), and local churches, all of whom later reported had noted the signs of abuse but failed to further investigate the matter thoroughly enough. This case of shocking incompetence and negligence also sparked public frenzy resulting in considerable debate over the need for drastic change. In light of this Lord Laming made considerable recommendations, which he reiterated and looked into after the case of Baby Peter, and emphasized on how necessary it was for these various agencies to work together in collaboration that was interlinked rather than as discrete bodies, working independently of each other. As a result of these reforms and recommendations, significant emphasis was put on professionals to work in better harmony with each other, and the importance of that was clearly illustrated by two cases where they didn't manage to do so. Inter-professional working is essential not only to a more harmonious effort, but can actually be vital to the welfare of a patient. These cases illustrate the extreme importance of inter-professional working. Without effective collaboration or communication, cases arise where one particular society feels that a certain situation is the responsibility of another society and vice versa. As a result this leads to gaps in communication and negligence in regard to the patient. The aim of every medical healthcare professional is the welfare of their patient, whether that professional is a nurse or a doctor. Therefore they should focus not on their tasks, but rather than their duty: the care of their patient. They should then do all that they can do fulfill this responsibility which may naturally include taking the responsibility of a field that is not their direct area of expertise. Furthermore, the quality of care is also greatly improved when a patient gets attention from a more diverse range of perspectives, rather than a singular area of focus. There is no doubt over the undoubted and considerate benefit that can arise from healthy inter-professional relationships in a workplace environment, particularly in settings such a medical care, child welfare, social welfare or older patient. Nurses, as the primary caretakers of a patient have special duty in this regard to collaborate with other medical professionals and deliver to their patients a greater level of care and attention, taking better on-spot decisions and thereby providing greater short-term and long-term benefits. References Curran, V. (2008) Interprofessional Education for Collaborative Patient – centred Practice: Research Synthesis Paper D’Amour, D., and Oandasan, I. (2005) Interprofessionality as the field of interprofessional practice and interprofessional education: An emerging concept. Journal of Interprofessional Care Mahmood-Yousuf, K (2008) Interprofessional relationships and communication in primary palliative care: impact of the Gold Standards Framework, British Journal of General Practice Sherwin, S. Interprofessional working is key to delivering quality PSHE British Journal of School Nursing, Vol. 4, Iss. 2, 13 Mar 2009, pp 93 - 95 Waddington, K (2007) Collaboration and Working with the multi-disciplinary team and agencies, Professional Issues in Primary Care and Nursing, Wiley-Blackwell. Read More