Collaboration and Teamwork in Health Care

The Concept and Unique Aspects of Collaboration in Health Care

Collaboration in healthcare can be defined as professionals in the field of healthcare working together through cooperation and complementing each other, consulting and solving problems and coming up with plans and executing them as a team for patient care. Collaboration means professionals are working together to achieve desired results in healthcare. Collaboration improves understanding of one others’ skills as well as enabling improved service delivery to patients. Effective collaboration in health care requires a specific approach.

Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation  is applied to strengthen interaction between individuals and teams (Tews, Liu, & Treat, 2015). This is a communication mechanism where standardized forms are guides are used to pass information. In the process of moving a patient from one caregiver to another, sometimes data is lost or becomes distorted. This technique aids in avoiding such occurrences. It provides the necessary steps for on how to handle situations pertaining to patients’ health needs. Once conditions in health care are standardized according to the Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation technique, patient information loss or distortion is eliminated.

Another collaboration approach in healthcare is the delegation of the roles of each team member. Every health care professional has a specific skill set, but understanding the abilities of others is also crucial. The success of the whole teams relies on each team member effectively executing their roles as well as distinguishing the tasks required of other members. Assigning of specific tasks is also a collaboration technique. Different professionals like nurses, dentists, psychologists, pharmacists, and social workers are trained differently to deal with situations concerning their field of specialization. They should, therefore, be assigned proper roles in the team ( Tews, Liu, & Treat, 2015) . 

The final aspect is practicing collaboration through conflict resolution and striving for continuous improvement. Differences in opinion will always occur in a healthcare team. Learning how to handle such disputes and deciding on the best possible solution is vital. Continuous improvement for the whole team requires that every member perform their roles as expected and work towards giving the role their best effort. 

Benefits of Effective Collaboration and Teamwork in Health Care

Health care has become more complex and complicated in recent years. Emerging trends and lifestyles have led to practitioners attempting complicated health services and procedures (Finks, 2014). Teamwork helps health workers quickly learn and understand these new requirements. Collaboration and teamwork also help in problems associated with burn out. Working together reduces the risk of medical errors which could be fatal or cause problems for patients. Reduced medical errors enhance the reputation of health workers and boost patients trust. Patients’ trust eventually creates a positive image of the organization from the public.

On the contrary, ineffective teamwork leads to poor services offered to patients. Statistics show that lack of collaboration leads to increased medical errors. A high number of medical mistakes sometimes leads to revocation of licenses for practitioners and close down of medical organizations. Poor services to patients may lead to despair on the part of the patients. Despair may also be contributed by lack of trust on health care workers. Burn out problems often occur where teamwork is ineffective (Weller, Boyd, & Cumin, 2014).

Characteristics and Concepts Required Ffor Effective Interdisciplinary Collaboration 

The World Health Organization expresses inter-professional collaboration as “Multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds work together with patients, families, caregivers, and communities to deliver the highest quality of care” (WHO, 2012). These professionals include nurses, dentists, Social workers, dieticians, psychologists, pharmacists, and therapists.

Good communication often characterizes successful inter-professional collaboration, mutual respect among disciplines and the desire to work together towards the achievement of a common goal (Lancaster, Kolakowsky‐Hayner, Kovacich, & Greer‐Williams, 2015). Excellent communication is a crucial feature of successful teams. Communication enables sharing of patient information and ideas. This way, professionals can learn new concepts and skills from other and understand the abilities of others in the team. Communication takes the form of verbal speech, written language, phone calls, patient care conferences and others. Mutual respect in effective interdisciplinary teams enables one to recognize the skills and limits of others, their role in the team how best to work with them. Every member of the team has to put their best effort towards achieving the team's collective goals. 

Barriers to Effective Interdisciplinary Collaboration

The barriers to effective interdisciplinary collaboration can be summarized as cultural and Institutional hurdles, lack of motivation and knowledge, time factor and lack of role clarification (Tacia, Biskupski, Pheley, & Lehto, 2015). The culture in an institution may discourage collaboration through some member s traditionally viewing themselves as superior or more intelligent. Members may also lack the motivation to work hard for the team or may be driven by selfish self -interests. Time is also a factor in effective inter-disciplinary collaboration. Many institutions suffer from a shortage of medical care officers. This results in the available practitioners having a schedule that is too busy such that they lack time to share ideas and effectively communicate with others. Poor clarification on the roles of team members leads to health care officers not understanding the limitations of their responsibilities, therefore, affecting coordination. This undermines collaboration. Poor role clarification can be blamed on poor management skills.

Identifies evidence-based strategies to overcome barriers to effective interdisciplinary collaboration

The barriers to effective interdisciplinary collaboration can be overcome by implementing evidence-based strategies. Mentorship programs on the importance of collaboration can be undertaken to educate health care officer on the importance of collaboration. Management support is also essential to motivate officers to work for the team. The management may also organize training sessions and conferences. Advanced education will be useful in breaking cultural and institutional barriers (Tacia, Biskupski, Pheley, & Lehto, 2015).

References

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.

Finks, J. F. (2014). Collaborative Quality Improvement. In Success in Academic Surgery. Health Services Research , 133-150.

Lancaster, G., Kolakowsky‐Hayner, S., Kovacich, J., & Greer‐Williams, N. (2015). Interdisciplinary communication and collaboration among physicians, nurses, and unlicensed assistive personnel. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 47(3) , 275-284.

Tacia, L., Biskupski, K., Pheley, A., & Lehto, R. H. (2015). Identifying barriers to evidence-based practice adoption: A focus group study. Clinical Nursing Studies, 3(2) , 90-96.

Tang, C. J., Chan, S. W., Zhou, W. T., & Liaw, S. Y. (2013). Collaboration between hospital physicians and nurses. An integrated literature review. International Nursing Review, 60 (3), 291–302.

Tews, M. C., Liu, J. M., & Treat, R. (2015). Situation-background-assessment-recommendation (SBAR) and emergency medicine residents' learning of case presentation skills. Journal of graduate medical education, 4(3) , 370-373.

Weller, J., Boyd, & Cumin, D. (2014). Teams, tribes and patient safety: overcoming barriers to effective teamwork in healthcare. Postgraduate medical journal, 90(1061) , 149-154.