Interprofessional Teamwork and Patient Outcome

Interprofessional Teamwork and Patient Outcome

Interprofessional teamwork can be defined as a means through which various professionals with different skills and talents coordinate to achieve a common objective. Interprofessional teamwork is an integral part of the health care delivery process since it is defined by a combination of various interventions that may not be conversant with the general physician. Health care facilities are therefore supposed to develop strategies that will promote coordination and collaboration to achieve the best health care outcomes that will, in turn, facilitate for patient satisfaction and retention. A rehabilitation centre provides a clinical setting for interprofessional since a successful intervention process requires the collaboration and coordination of more than one profession: nurses, counsellors, psychiatrist, therapists, psychologists, certified addiction specialists.

Compassion

Compassion in health care is described through acts of empathy and improved understanding and relations between the patient and the nurse. A nursing action that can contribute to compassion through the interprofessional teamwork is providing the drug addicts, someone, they can talk to. With the availability of counsellors, it is important that the patient is sent to regular counselling sessions. In these sessions, the patient will be able to open up about their addiction and other issues in their life. The counsellor will also professionally evaluate the patient and provide useful information to the nurse that can enable them to understand their patients better. Having someone to talk to is an integral part of the recovery process as the patient is able to understand themselves better. Counselling sessions also reduce the patient’s stress levels and thus reducing the risk of relapses that are usually triggered by psychological concerns.

Advocacy

Advocacy in health care is defined when a nurse defends the patient by speaking against policies that may conflict the patient’s rights or compromise their recovery. In a rehabilitation setting, the nurse may observe advocacy through several strategies. One of the strategies is educating the drug addicts about the health implications of drug and substance abuse. Organizing forums in which recovering addicts can interact with other individuals who went through a successful rehabilitation process and protecting the rights of the drug addicts within the facility. Educating recovering addicts about the implications of drug abuse helps speed up the recovery process as they get to understand the relevance of the recovery process. Organizing for interactions between recovering drug addicts and those who have successfully gone through the rehabilitation process also inspires the patients as they become more committed to the course. Protecting the rights of the patients also facilitates patient satisfaction besides breeding a sense of integrity.

Resilience

Resilience is the capacity to go back to a state of normalcy or recovering from trauma. A rehabilitation facility can provide a stressful and hostile environment to a nurse since it is characterized by patients struggling from psychological issues caused by drug abuse. It is also difficult to break an individual’s habit; hence, nurses are supposed to approach every case with utmost enthusiasm. They are supposed to treat each case as their first as this will help them take the patient through the entire process successful despite incidents of relapses or setbacks that may occur on the way. Recovering addicts need someone who will hold their hand through the recovery process and not give up on them. The rehabilitation process can, therefore, only be achieved through resilience.

Evidence-Based Practice

Evidence-based practice can be described as the process of collecting and effecting research findings to enhance clinical practice and patient outcome. It involves the integration of clinical practices with the best evidence from research. In the rehabilitation setting, evidence-based practice will involve in the incorporation of practices such as complementary therapies that will help in the recovery of the patients. It is, therefore, through the interprofessional contribution of therapists at the facility that evidence-based practice can be incorporated in the intervention. Complementary therapies in a rehabilitation intervention process may involve the integration of holistic treatment with medical treatment. Evidence-based practice in rehabilitation may, therefore, result in improved patient outcomes and a faster recovery where the holistic treatment proves effective.

Summary

In conclusion, the iCARE components provide a guideline that can effectively support interprofessional collaboration to improve the patient’s outcome. In the rehabilitation facility, for example, the various professions, psychiatrists, counsellors, nurses, and therapists must all coordinate and collaborate to deliver compassion, advocacy, resilience, and evidence-based practice. I can influence the process of support and play a role in the delivery of the iCARE components by providing conducting research to identify the best practices other than complementary therapy that can be integrated with the intervention to improve the quality of outcome and also facilitate for patient satisfaction.