Understanding inter-professional healthcare

In the field of healthcare, inter-professional healthcare is important while facing every patient. In this report, it will list out what is inter-professional healthcare, methods to implement and consider the benefits and the barriers to the implement.

Definition of inter-professional healthcare

Inter-professional healthcare seems to be a hard term; in fact, it is used to refer to “two or more professions working together as a team with a common purpose, commitment and mutual respect” (Freeth et al. 2005, cited in Dunston et al., 2009, p. 6). In a simple explanation, inter- professional healthcare is a group of medical professions work as a team and request teamwork to achieve their goal, as known as cure the patients. The definition of teamwork is Interdependent performance become possible which according to actual behaviors, cognitions and attitudes. (Sallie et al., 2013)

Methods used to implement inter-professional

In teamwork, three essential, overlapping jobs are need, which is coordination, communication and shared responsibility (Hayes, 2014). Here are some methods can be do during inter-professional healthcare.

Team discussion

Problem solving through a team discussion is one of the methods. During discussion, defining problem and goals decision is needed which making a clear direction for the team for follow and achieve it. Also, opinions seeking about the problem form appropriate profession may help the team to discuss and expand the problem. Each member contribute their own unique professional perspective may make the problem become easier to solve. After giving opinions and advices, it is possible to plan out some possible solutions or patient handling plans. Giving opinions about each solution then evaluate them and choose the best one to process. At the end, summarize the plan and agree on distribution of tasks across team members (Hayes, 2014).

Conflict management

Another method can be apply on inter-professional healthcare is conflict management. No matter in any discussion, conflict may be occur and disturb the progress of problem solving. The meaning of professional diversity is “the conflict is inevitable, but also necessary” (Hayes, 2014, p.9). According to helpguide.org, the ability to successfully resolve conflict as follow: manage stress as soon as possible while people still remain alert and calm, self-emotion and behavior management, the feelings which people being expressed has to be careful, also be aware of and respectful of differences. (Conflict resolution skills, n.d., para.9)

Benefits of inter-professional healthcare

For benefits, it can be divided into four groups: patients, health care professional, educators or students, and health care delivery system.

Patients

With healthcare professional applied inter-professional healthcare, the outcomes of patient are improved. Also, the patient will have an effective care and reduce in costs and mistakes form the professional (Menken, 2011).

Health care professional

In health care professional, continuous interaction, coordinated efforts and knowledge sharing among the professionals is needed during work (american speech-language-hearing association, n.d., para.1). With inter-professional healthcare applied, the professional may improve the skills which mention above. Furthermore, according form world health organization, it point out that each professional may learn about, with and from different professional members (world health organization, 2010)

Health care delivery system

According to American speech-language-hearing association, it point out that the health care system are facing an impact on several problem, such as the health care practitioners requirement increase, the number of health care practitioners having retirement in increase, greater demands being placed on existing health care professional by increasing complexity of patient care, ETC.(American speech-language-hearing association, n.d., para.2).With inter-professional healthcare, the human resources can be used to move toward optimal health-services and better health outcomes (world health organization, 2010).

Barriers to inter-professional healthcare implementation

Difficulty may appear while doing inter-professional healthcare. Here are some examples which may cause it hard to proceed.

Miscommunication

Quoting the words form a physician leader at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, “the communication line just wasn’t there. We thought it was, but it wasn’t. We talk to nurses every day but we aren’t really communicating.” (gittell, 2009, p.5). Communication is the main part in inter-professional healthcare. it is needed in every case, which helps the healthcare professional to understand the problem, doing discussion and plan a solution. When communication is misleading, problem solving will be disturb and hard to process.

Miscommunication may occur in these situations: things happen in high frequency of changing and working with different professional.

Things in rapid changing

Things happen which rapidly changing may lead to miscommunication. Quoting the words from a nurse administrator at Massachusetts General Hospital “miscommunication between the physician and the nurse is common because so many things are happening so quickly.” (gittell, 2009, p.5). Giving an example, the patient in and out of the hospital is so quick.

Working with different professional

Every patient is a unique case, the need of the patients are different. As a result, the healthcare professional needs to work with different professional with different background. Giving an example, caring a diabetes patient in general needs a dietitan, oral health, podiatrist, GP, physiotherapist, MRS, OT and optometrisits. With different professional background, each of the professional has different level of understanding in the problem. The hardest part is let the team member understand other professional view. Quote back the physician leader from about, they seem to be communicating with nurses every day, but they cannot understand their words (gittell, 2009, p.5). For suggestion, different professional have to explain to the team member their wording because some of them may not appear in other field.

Conflict management

Good management of conflict may improve the effectiveness of the team, in opposite, bad conflict management may become a barrier to implement inter-professional healthcare. According to helpguide.org, one or both parties feel a dangerous in a situation is a conflict (Conflict resolution skills, n.d., para.6). in a simple way to express, two members of the team arguing the treating method for a patient and both members don’t give off their opinion. If the conflicts cannot be solved, it continues to fester (Conflict resolution skills, n.d., para.6) and have a possibility of harming the health of the patient. Clam the member down, discuss the problem again and finding the most suitable solution is the idea of solving a conflicts.

Conclusion

In conclusion, due to the problem we are facing in healthcare industry, such as healthcare professional loss, funding in medical field, ETC., inter-professional healthcare may become more important and be the best way to use most of the human resource, But there are some difficulty to proceed. In most of it, explain and conflict control are the solution.

References:

• Dunston, R., Lee, A., Lee, A., Matthews, L., Nisbet, G., Pockett, R., Thistlethwaite, J., & White, J. (2009).Interprofessional health education in Australia: The way forward.Retrieved from http://www.rilc.uts.edu.au/pdfs/wayforward.pdf
• Weaver S. J., Feitosa J., Salas E., Seddon R., and Vozenilek J. A. (2013), the theoretical drivers and models of team performance and effectiveness for patient safety. In Eduardo Salas, Karen Frush (Eds.), Improving patient safety through teamwork and team training (pp. 4). New York,NY: Oxford university press.
• Hayes M. (2014). Inter-professional Teamwork in Healthcare [PDF]. Retrieved from https://uonline.newcastle.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-2233251-dt-content-rid-6106527_1/courses/CRS.107575.2014.S1/Interprofessional%20Teamwork%20in%20Healthcare.pdf
• Segal J., & Smith M. (2014). Conflict Resolution skills. Retrieved April 21, 2014, from http://www.helpguide.org/mental/eq8_conflict_resolution.htm
• Menken M. (2011). Interprofessional Healthcare Education Means Better Patient Care. Retrieved April 21, 2014, from http://explorehealthcareers.org/en/issues/news/Article/252/Interprofessional_Healthcare_Education_Means_Better_Patient_Care
• World Health Organization (2010). Framework for action on interprofessional education and collaborative practice. Retrieved form http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2010/WHO_HRH_HPN_10.3_eng.pdf?ua=1
• American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2008), Why is greater emphasis being placed on interprofessional education in health care? What impact will it have on the education of audiologists and speech-language pathologists? Retrieved April 21, 2014, from http://www.asha.org/academic/questions/Interprofessional-Education/
• Jody Hoffer Gittell (2009). High Performance Healthcare. The United States of America: McGraw-Hill.