Interprofessional Collaboration and Teamwork BSN-FP4017 Assessment

Interprofessional Collaboration and Teamwork BSN-FP4017 Assessment

Interprofessional Collaboration and Teamwork BSN-FP4017 Assessment

Inter-professional Collaboration and Teamwork

Meaning of Interprofessional Collaboration from a Nursing Perspective

Interprofessional collaboration is the process where staffs from different healthcare professions work together by sharing ideas, expertise, and knowledge to promote quality care delivery (Kobayashi & McAlliste, 2014). The aim of the partnership is to create uniformity of decision making among the practitioners, communities, patients, and families in order to foster holistic and optimal health outcomes. Research by various scholars shows that interprofessional collaboration promotes communication, coordination, and ultimately, the safety/quality and efficiency of patient care (Bender, Connelly, & Brown, 2013). The approach utilizes both the individual and collective experience and skills of team players hence allowing them to operate effectively to deliver quality services. Major interprofessional stakeholders include nurses, pharmacists, doctors, nutritionists among others. The collaboration aims at improving patients experience. 

Characteristics and Qualities of Effective Interprofessional Teams

Effective teamwork is one of the best ways of enhancing clinical outcomes. Therefore, the interprofessional teams must work in unity. There should be good interpersonal relations between the members, which will improve communication and coordination. The leaders must mobilize their members to promote the unity of purpose and work together without being biased. For effective collaboration to happen, the interprofessional groups must have good leaders who are competent and capable of directing (Bender et al., 2013).  Leadership is always an integral part of success and therefore the leaders in this context must be competent enough to supervise all the activities of the team and ensure there is a good relation among the members.

In addition, there should be a collaborative culture within the team, which allows respects and harmony among the team members despite their social class, religion, complexion, and gender. Trust and consensus must also be fostered and consistently portrayed. The team needs to have the sufficient number of staff members from each profession to have the best mix of skills and expertise. This will ensure that the team is able to address the contemporary and long-term problems affecting the patients.

Benefits and Limitations of Inter-Professional Teams

There is always better outcome whenever there is a collaboration with the aim of working together as a team. Inter-professional teams are beneficial in that they create a conducive environment for the patients (Derry, Schunn, & Gernsbacher, 2014)). The patients receive quality care in the most convenient way. This implies that all the healthcare providers from different disciplines have a common goal of improving health delivery services, because they work as a team. Therefore, the patient receives holistic care that would not be possible without the collaborative efforts.

There are also several barriers that hinder collaboration. One of the limitations is the failure to appreciate the roles of some health professionals. The practice of failing to honor some members’ efforts creates dissatisfaction and demotivation hence discouraging delivery of quality care. Other demerits may also emanate from legal limitations that defines the roles and scope of the team. There may be restrictions that denies some professionals the right to making some health care decisions (Kobayashi & McAlliste, 2014). Barriers that occur at personal level include lack of measurable responsibilities of the members, leadership ambiguity, accountability, and poor decision making. In other cases, the team might be too small or too large hence creating management problems.  The team may also promote inequity in decision making process based on gender, religion, education, social class, and ethnicity (Kobayashi & McAlliste, 2014). 

Challenges of working in an inter-professional team.

Invalid assumptions within the group may contribute to breakdown in teamwork and communication, hence creating an obstacle in delivering effective patients’ care. The team may lack clarity of mission, vision, and its operations may be affected by future uncertainty and changes in patients’ needs. In addition, the team may lack services aimed at personal and professional development such as opportunities for promotion, training, recognition, and motivational schemes. The contact time with each patient also reduces making it difficult to establish a lasting relationship with the patient (Kobayashi & McAlliste, 2014). When working together as a team, some issues occur as a result of one person’s error and the liability of that mistake ends up affecting other members who were not involved. As a result, mistakes make by one member may affect others directly or indirectly. Lastly, there is also unease when members of another profession are involved in making clinical decisions in an area they do not have expertise.

Strategies to help people come together to function effectively as a collaborative team

One of the strategies that can be used to pull together the healthcare givers to work as a team is through training. For instance, the nurses can learn about pharmacy and other disciplines in the healthcare which will enable them to offer or collaborate in a better way. The leadership should also establish powerful means of overcoming conflicts and also have an effective way of communication (Derry et al., 2014). The management should ensure that they create a common goal to achieve and ensure that there is respect for others’ professions. For effective teamwork, the management must continuously work together in solving problems that counter progress of the partnership.

How inter-professional teams define success

Proper coordination is the foundation of success in any professional team. The presence of continued communication and coordination among the team members implies that the team is successful and ready to achieve the predetermined objectives. In addition, the inter-professional can define success through client satisfaction (Derry et al., 2014). In other words, the way the patient rates the collaboration, that is what determines the success of the team. The definition of the term inter-professional collaboration may change based on the intended purpose. For instance, it may be formed to address an emergency problem affecting patients in order to come up with an instant solution from all the professionals in the organization. Therefore, the team may have short-term objectives as opposed to achieving long-term organizational goals.

Conclusion

Inter-professional collaboration in the healthcare field is considered beneficial to both the organizations and the individual patients. The manager’s benefit because managing a single team is more convenient than managing smaller groups of people. They can integrate new visions easily and also solve problems with minimal efforts. The patients benefit by receiving holistic care and specialized treatment. Although the collaboration may pose some limitations, the benefits outweigh the challenges hence many organizations practice it.

References

Derry, S. J., Schunn, C. D., & Gernsbacher, M. A. (Eds.). (2014). Interdisciplinary

collaboration: An emerging cognitive science. Psychology Press.

Kobayashi, R., & McAllister, C. A. (2014). Similarities and differences in perspectives on

interdisciplinary collaboration among hospice team members. American Journal of

Hospice and Palliative Medicine®, 31(8), 825-832.

Bender, M., Connelly, C. D., & Brown, C. (2013). Interdisciplinary collaboration: The role of the

clinical nurse leader. Journal of nursing management, 21(1), 165-174.

Interprofessional Collaboration and Teamwork BSN-FP4017 Assessment