Response to peers third comments

Response three: Interprofessional collaboration is when multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds work together with patients, families, carers and communities to deliver the highest quality of care. It is based on the concept that when providers consider each other’s perspective, including that of the patient, they can deliver better care. By collaborating and involving everyone that is apart of the patient care, different departments knows what is going on with the patient, it will reduce errors, improve the quality of care and provide safety. Communication is sometimes poor in healthcare, this can cause harm to patients, by promoting interprofessional collaboration, coordination of care across the continuum of healthcare in all settings. Working as a team, the patient’s care is coordinated throughout the healthcare continuum. This promotes sharing of knowledge and working toward a common goal where each professional learns about each other’s roles and responsibilities from each other. These ensure better communication with less chance of error, whether a patient is being transferred from surgery to the intensive care unit or from an acute care setting to a long-term facility.

The traditional culture of healthcare training and practice has been to work by themselves and without a team. Doctors are not used to working collaboratively across disciplines. Study has shown that some hospital nurses and physicians caring for the same patients often could not identify each other and often had different priorities for them, suggesting that there is no coordination of care. Some cultural barriers exist, there is little exposure to each other’s role and perspective. This may foster miscommunication, mistrust, conflict, and a lack of coordinated care. Second, physicians historically have been autonomous and dominant of other health professions, rather than collaborative. Third, patients themselves have traditionally not been a part of the decision making related to their care, there is resistance to change, as health professionals may need more education and training in adopting the new trend.

REFERENCE

US National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health. Retrieved from,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov