Interprofessional Collaboration-Nursing Examples
This week’s reflective journal topic focused on interprofessional collaboration. Ideally, interprofessional collaboration in healthcare is a powerful strategy for achieving optimum health outcomes. I learned that it allows multiple healthcare workers from different professional backgrounds to collaborate among themselves, the patients, families, caregivers, and communities, in general, to deliver the best available healthcare services across various health settings (McGuire et al., 2020). In this case, nurses and other healthcare professionals should embrace interprofessional collaboration as it improves care coordination where patients and their families/caregivers are involved in making decisions. Coordinated and comprehensive care ensures that health providers and systems respond to the needs of the patients and the general population (Interprofessional Collaboration-Nursing Examples).
One of my primary strengths is effective communication. It promotes interprofessional collaboration since I can involve all healthcare professionals, patients, their families/caregivers, and the community in designing appropriate healthcare plans to address current and future healthcare needs. Thus, interprofessional collaboration eliminates potential disputes since all healthcare providers collaborate during care delivery. It also promotes treatment compliance since patients and their families are involved in designing care plans.
However, one of my significant weaknesses is avoiding conflict, which may lead to withdrawal from the team. Research shows potential healthcare delivery delays when one of the stakeholders is uncooperative (McGuire et al., 2020). For instance, disagreements on suitable healthcare plans between patients and healthcare professionals may cause delays linked to low quality of care (Interprofessional Collaboration-Nursing Examples).
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Leadership has an instrumental role in promoting interprofessional collaboration. Healthcare leaders should foster a culture of change to improve collaboration between healthcare staff and their patients to improve care quality. Health leaders should also participate in developing interprofessional collaboration policies, funding models, and governance structures (McGuire et al., 2020). Thus, professional regulatory processes/procedures will facilitate collaborative practice by setting scope and standard of practice. The government should also offer funding and healthcare system structures to support interprofessional collaboration (Interprofessional Collaboration-Nursing Examples).