Multidisciplinary Collaboration

Multidisciplinary Collaboration

Explain how multidisciplinary collaboration can affect clinical decision making.

Multidisciplinary collaboration has a positive effect on decision making. In teamwork, every professional is expected to give their opinions on different working procedures. Usually, each of the experts has different skills and experiences. Therefore, involving all the experts in decision making allows the team to settle in the best decision that will promote quality care. Moreover, involving all experts is a form of motivating them since they will feel appreciated when involved in making important decisions in my life.

Discuss how collaboration can lead to improved patient outcomes

Collaboration is a determinant of quality patient outcomes. When a patient is being treated, many experts are involved, and without collaboration, then there could be a medical error. One way of collaboration is effective communication. During shift hand over, if one nurse fails to offer the important details about a patient, then some error could happen. For instance, the nurse fails to tell her colleague of a patient who has a history of failing to notify the nurse to pay special attention and not leave the patient unsupervised.

The moment the patient leaves their bed in the absence of the night nurse, he ends up falling and incurring severe injuries. This could have been prevented by not withholding information. Collaboration also encourages health practitioners to work together towards solving a problem. Here, the professionals will not consider one better than the other. Rather they will value each other’s opinion and use their combined knowledge to come with the best solution for a certain condition. Collaboration also encourages quick reporting of errors, where the errors are corrected before they escalate further. Teamwork also encourages standardization, where all practitioners follow a standardized procedure. All members of the group feel valued and will direct their energy and knowledge towards a common goal, and that is quality.

Discuss how lack of collaboration can lead to poor patient outcomes

Collaboration could lead to poor patient outcomes because there is hardly communication between practitioners. Breakdown of communication means that there will be information about a patient that will not be shared. For instance, a physiologist refers a patient to her colleague but fails to communicate all information such as patient allergies. When the other physiologist administers medication, they do not consider the allergens of the patient since they are not aware, and the patient ends up being affected. This would have been prevented by sharing all the information. Also, without teamwork, n  mutual agreement will ever arrive. All practitioners will want to use their own procedures, which increases variations in patient outcomes.

Identify three barriers to professional collaboration among healthcare professionals and patients?

One of the barriers includes poor or inadequate communication. Sometimes patients do not share all the medical history with doctors due to one reason or the other, and they make the doctors work hard.  For instance, a teenager omits important details such as a previous abortion in fear of judgment or being reported to the parents.  Such patients limit professionals from doing their work effectively.  Another barrier would be a language barrier or low literacy. A patient may be speaking in a foreign language, making it hard for them to work together.  The patient may also be illiterate and give the doctor the wrong information. If a doctor uses inaccurate data to treat a patient, then there is likely to result in poor patient outcomes. Also, the professor may use medical terms, which can be hard to comprehend, and the patient can be too shy to ask for clarifications. The third barrier to patient consent. A doctor may get disappointed when a patient refuses the recommended care, and instead of looking for alternative care, the doctor refuses to continue seeing the patient. a doctor should not press a patient to make a decision rather. He should give the patient adequate time to arrive at a decision he feels is best for him

What are the five best ways to promote professional collaboration in pediatric primary care?

Promoting professional collaboration in the pediatric unit could be through improving in-person communication, bridging communication barriers, setting common patient care goals, being considerate, and making time for patients. Improving in-person communication entails a professional being able to effectively communicate with the patients. Since he is dealing with parents and children, he ought to know how to engage with the kids for them to share information accordingly. Bridging communication will entail ensuring that the doctor uses simple language that the kid and the parent will understand professionals need to set patient goals that they focus on achieving. This way, they can work together to achieve these goals. Being considerate will require the doctor to consider the parent’s situations and work together with them to provide care for their children. Doctors should also make time to study a child. He should follow up to ensure the baby is okay.

How can the nurse practitioner encourage and support collaboration among the patient, family, caregivers, and healthcare professionals?

Patients, families, healthcare providers, and practitioners are likely to be diverse people from different races or cultures. Recognizing culture diversity is the beginning of encouraging collaboration amongst people of different cultural backgrounds. People are able to understand and respect each other and therefore promoting teamwork. Nurse practitioners also have to advocate for open communication where these teams share vital information without withholding any regardless of how ugly it might be. Moreover, practitioners can promote collaboration by eradicating communication barriers and ensuring the flow of communication. Professionals have to understand how to speak to different patients and parents through the use of skills such as empathy.