Interdisciplinary Relationships - Term Paper Example

? Interdisciplinary relationships An interdisciplinary relationship in health care organization involves professionals with diverse expertise and skills who work together in attaining shared goals. This is a collaborative process that allows comprehensive and patient-centered health care delivery in meeting the health care needs of the patients. The team should focus on positive patient outcomes and sharing responsibility of meeting the health care goals. The expertise, skills and roles of each member should be well coordinated. Some essentials of interdisciplinary relationships include clear goal definition, differentiated tasks and role assignment, excellent communication structures and clear conflict resolution mechanisms. Interdisciplinary relationships will reduce the medical errors, ensure patient satisfaction and reduce the costs associated with health care delivery. Interdisciplinary relationships Introduction Interdisciplinary relationships in health care entail practitioners from different disciplines and departments who share common goals of ensuring positive patient outcomes and shared responsibility for collaboration and interdependence in their tasks (Westber & Jason, 1993). Such teams ensure ongoing communication among the families, patients and team members in order to ensure the health care needs are well addressed, and efforts of all members are integrated. Collaboration among health care professionals is paramount in attaining positive patient outcomes. Every member of the team in the health care is trained in a specific body of knowledge and skills thus working together will ensure the teams perform excellently in delivering health care (Sternas, O’Hare, Lehman & Mulligan, 1999: p 67). All departments in the health facility such as diagnosis department, pharmacy, radiology, and emergency department should collaborate in delivering positive patient outcomes. According to the sequential model of health care, the nurses should perform the initial patient disease history recording and the physical examination of the patient such as the blood pressure level, and the body temperature while the physician should engage in diagnosis and complex screening of the patient (Hansten, 2008). For instance, the marketing department in a pharmaceutical company should work closely with the new product development department. The marketing department should provide crucial information on the changing nature of diseases and the preferred mode of treatment by the patients in order to facilitate the development of drugs that lead to positive patient outcomes. Obstetrics and gynecology departments should also collaborate with intensive care units such as Pediatric intensive care unit and Neonatal intensive care unit in ensuring quality health care delivery to patients (Westber & Jason, 1993). The Casualty department should work closely with Physical therapy department and rehabilitation services departments in order to ensure patient safety. Medical records department should collaborate with Diagnosis departments such as Laboratory department, Oncology department and Pharmacy department in order to ensure accurate records of patient’s disease history and prior medication are properly recorded in order to reduce the chances of medical errors due to wrong drug administration or patient identification. How to work as a team Interdisciplinary relationships entail a common population of patients, shared commitment by all team members in the organization of meeting the positive patient outcome goals and an understanding of each member’s role. The role of each member in the team should be appropriate to his or her expertise and a mechanism of communication should be implemented (Westber & Jason, 1993). Establishing strong interdisciplinary teams will entail commitment and continuous nurturing of the teams. The members of the teams should be selected depending on their areas of expertise and skills that are essential in accomplishing the team goals. Effective interdisciplinary teams should be aware of the goals, the leadership structure, communication channels and conflict resolution mechanisms. The goals should be clear and realizable within the current resource availability and skills of the team members. Goals should also be prioritized in order to ensure team cohesiveness and teams should redefine their goals depending on the changing circumstances (Sternas, O’Hare, Lehman & Mulligan, p 66). Working as an interdisciplinary team will also entail clear definition of the tasks and roles of each team member. For instance, some members may have the necessary skills in interacting with patients while others may have expertise in diagnosis, surgery and treatment of patients. Tasks to be performed in health care delivery should be properly differentiated and roles assigned to each member. Every member should be aware of his or her role expectation and role conflict should be avoided in areas where members may have overlapping skills (Porter-O’Grady, 2009). The assignment of roles should be guided by the required expertise, skills and preference of each member of the team. Lack of clear role assignment and clarification will lead to pitfalls such as conflicts among the health care professionals, and ineffective decision making. Another aspect of interdisciplinary relationships is leadership and decision making mechanisms. There should be equal participation and responsibility sharing by all team members. The leadership structure should be based on the nature of health care problem rather than hierarchy in the health care organization or power factors. Interdisciplinary relationship in health care delivery will also require effective and efficient exchange of patient information. There should be well designed information recording system and meeting whereby team members can discuss patient disease outcomes (Westber & Jason, 1993). Conflict resolution Continuous conflict resolution is essential in interdisciplinary relationships. Provided the diversity in skills and cultural backgrounds of the members, differences in opinions, perceptions and conflicts are inevitable in interdisciplinary relationship. Some conflicts are constructive in the team since they foster problem solving, increased trust and encourage innovativeness among the members. Some warning signals of conflicts include low morale, lack of commitment and depression among the members. Some of the barriers to conflict resolution include lack of feedback, obedience to authority and conflict of roles within the team (Porter-O’Grady, 2009). Members of the interdisciplinary team can reduce conflicts by ensuring trust and quality working relationships within the team. There should be a joint decision making mechanism that is essential in instilling shared responsibility among the team members. Mutual respect for cross-cultural differences of the team members will strengthen the working relationships of the members. Members of an interdisciplinary team can resolve conflicts through eliminating the emotional components of the conflict by granting all members to the conflict the chance to air their own opinions, and listening carefully to the conflicting opinions. The members should recognize the conflicting problem and brainstorm on the alternative solutions to the problem. The members should focus on the common interests of the team and invent innovative solutions to the conflict in order to ensure proper working relationships within the team. The solution should be implemented and finally evaluated on the ability to solve the conflict. The best alternative to conflict resolution in interdisciplinary teams is collaborative problem-solving since the solution to the conflict will maximize the net gains of the team and ensure trust within the team (Hansten, 2008). The team can improve conflict resolution through two-way communication and the on-going sharing of the changing patient outcomes. Another critical aspect that team members can focus on in order to improve conflict resolution is ensuring optimism in delivering quality health services to the patients through coordination, and cooperation in order to enhance the productivity of each member of the team (Porter-O’Grady, 2009). Personal experience I have a personal experience of interdisciplinary relationship in health organizations. The team comprised of receptionist, physician, laboratory technician, pharmacist, x-ray technician and nurse practitioner. The roles of each member were clearly defined, and meetings were frequently held to discuss the changing patient outcomes. The leadership of the team was based on the patient need while all members displayed trust and respect for each other. The roles were assigned depending on expertise, for instance, the receptionist was tasked with patient disease history documentation while the physician was tasked with the role of disease diagnosis. The relationships worked well due cross-cultural differences awareness and well defined team values of mutual respect, integrity and commitment to the goals. The mission was to enhance patient satisfaction and reduce medical errors while improving the efficiency of health care delivery processes. The team finally managed to attain the pre-determined goals and objectives. Benefits of interdisciplinary relationships Interdisciplinary relationships affect health care organizations, families and the patients that use the health care organizations. For instance, the patients are able to experience improved health care services due to the coordination of services in complex medical problems. Interdisciplinary team health care will integrate the health care processes thus enhancing the ability to quickly respond to emergency medical needs like surgeries (Hansten, 2008). Interdisciplinary relationships in health care delivery will lead to empowerment of patients by making them active participants in health care delivery. Interdisciplinary relationships entail cross-cultural awareness of the health care professionals thus enabling the effective delivery of health services to patients from diverse cultural background. Interdisciplinary relationships decrease the health care costs for patients and medical errors (Westber & Jason, 1993). For the health care professionals, interdisciplinary relationships will lead to enhanced work satisfaction and improved productivity. This type of health care delivery model will ensure that specific strengths of a particular discipline such as diagnosis will supplement the weaknesses that may be experienced by other team members. This approach to health care delivery also encourages innovation and creativity in responding to emerging medical issues through ensuring collective responsibility for positive patient outcomes (Westber & Jason, 1993). The health care professionals have an opportunity of focusing on the individual areas of expertise while seeking advice and assistance from the other disciplines through collaboration and shared decision making. This approach will foster understanding and appreciation of all medical professionals involved in the health care delivery due to the interpersonal and social skills of the team members. Health care professionals have the opportunity to understand the norms and values of each discipline involved in the health care service delivery process (Porter-O’Grady, 2009). For health care organizations, interdisciplinary relationships represent a shift from the traditional episodic care to the likelihood of disease occurrence analysis care, and preventive care. The organizations will maximize the use of the facilities and efficiently use the available resources thus ultimately reducing the health care costs. Interdisciplinary relationships will increase the patient numbers and employee retention due to the continuous quality improvement processes in the organization (Westber & Jason, 1993). Conclusion The research concludes that interdisciplinary relationships and collaborations benefits patients, health care providers and health care organizations. Effective health care delivery requires intrinsic interdisciplinary relationships and skills such as mutual respect and communication skills. The cornerstone of interdisciplinary relationships includes shared ownership of positive patient outcome goals, collective-decision making, flexibility and interdependence of the health care workers. The roles of each member should be clearly defined, and leadership should be based on the nature of the problem. The channels of communication should encourage patient information documentation and sharing of such information. There should be mechanisms of conflict resolution in order to ensure high morale and trust among the members of the team. Effective collaboration among the health care professionals will reduce the patient mortality by reducing the medical errors, and also reducing the health care delivery costs. Interdisciplinary relationships will foster patient satisfaction, and enhance healthcare workers’ motivation. References: Hansten, R.I. (2008). Relationships & results oriented healthcare: planning and implementation manual. New York. Hansten Healthcare, PLLC. Porter-O’Grady, T. (2009). Interdisciplinary shared governance: integrated practice. New Jersey. Routledge. Sternas K., O’Hare P., Lehman, K & Mulligan, R. (1999). “Nursing and medical student teaming for service learning in partnership with the community: an emerging holistic model for interdisciplinary education and practice”. Holistic Nursing Practice 13(2) 66- 77. Westberg J, & Jason H. (1993). Collaborative clinical education: the foundation of effective health care. New York: Springer-Verlag. Read More