Collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Team (Nursing)

00:01 Hi, I'm Jessica Spellman. We're gonna be reviewing Collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Team.

00:08 The objectives of this course are to be able to define interdisciplinary collaboration; review professional organization statements regarding interdisciplinary collaboration; recognize the benefits of using interdisciplinary collaboration in the patient care setting; identify some of the barriers that prevent collaboration; and implement suggestions on how to collaborate with other disciplines. Let's review some definitions.

00:38 The first one will be interdisciplinary team, and an interdisciplinary team is a group that represents multiple professions.

00:45 Those professions can include physicians, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, medical dietetics, social workers, discharge planners, as well as many others.

00:59 Collaboration is when each profession contributes their own expertise to the patient-centered plan of care. Members exchange ideas regarding the patient's specific needs and address how to best meet those needs. So it's not one group telling the other group what they need to do, but it's an exchange of ideas. Interdisciplinary collaboration requires involvement from all disciplines.

01:24 It involves clinical expertise and patient-centered focus. Members must possess good communication skills, have respect for diverse ideas, and have knowledge of group dynamics, conflict resolution, negotiation and time management. The Institute of Medicine in 2010 released the "Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health." This report included a recommendation for how nurses can improve quality and lead change in healthcare.

01:57 I wanna focus specifically on recommendation number 2, which outlines that healthcare organizations, nursing education programs and nursing associations should expand opportunities for nurses to lead and manage collaboratively with physicians and other healthcare team members. The Health Professions Educations Summit in 2002 made some suggestions. They identified some areas for students and working professionals to develop and maintain proficiency in five areas. The first area is delivering patient-centered care. The next core competency is in working as part of an interdisciplinary team. The third is practicing evidence-based medicine.

02:45 Fourth is focusing on quality improvement and fifth is using information technology.

02:51 The American Association of Colleges of Nursing, or the AACN, has a position statement about interdisciplinary collaboration. All healthcare disciplines share a common and primary commitment to serving the patient and working toward the ideal of health for all.

03:08 While each discipline has its own focus, the scope of healthcare mandates that each health professional work collaboratively and with other related disciplines. Collaboration emanates from understanding and appreciation of the role in contributions that each discipline brings to the care delivery experience. Such professional socialization and ability to work together is the result of shared educational and practice experiences. In summary, this position statement is saying it is important to collaborate to provide high quality care to each patient. It is not an option.

03:48 It's mandatory and it should begin while students are in nursing school and continue into practice.

03:56 Interdisciplinary collaboration is important because each healthcare profession has information the others need to possess in order to practice successfully. So in the interest of safe patient care, neither profession can stand alone. Making good collaboration skills is absolutely essential.

04:16 So there are barriers to interdisciplinary collaboration. So why is it so difficult? Education occurs in silos. College of Medicine, College of Nursing, Allied Health, everyone is educated within their own specific school or college.

04:33 Second, there's a lack of awareness. So much focus is placed on each discipline that we forget to look at what other disciplines are doing. And we assume that others are taking care of the portion of patient care that they're supposed to be taking care of.

04:50 So if we don't look into consulting with other professions and discussing and following up with other disciplines, patient needs may get neglected.

05:01 So what do we do to promote interdisciplinary collaboration? First we need to communicate. Doesn't have to be in person, but electronic medical records make it a lot easier to see documentation from other professions and following up can occur via a phone call or email.

05:21 Second, we need to embrace diversity. There's a lot of information in every healthcare field and many different personalities in healthcare settings. No two patients are the same and neither are healthcare workers. We need to be cognizant of time management.

05:40 Every discipline has demands on their time, so being respectful and efficient in communication is appreciated within all disciplines. Conflict resolution and team work.

05:52 All disciplines and healthcare workers need to be aware of effective principles of teamwork and model professional behavior.

05:59 When there's conflict, being knowledgeable about how to approach and manage that conflict while being respectful is imperative. We need to have interdisciplinary rounds.

06:10 The benefits of interdisciplinary rounds are extensive. Patients express a higher level of satisfaction having all team members present. Disciplines are aware of issues and interventions of all disciplines. Questions get resolved more quickly and gaps in care are discovered. So to summarize, interdisciplinary collaboration is effective in addressing patient needs and leads to higher quality of care for patients.

06:40 Professional organizations, such as the IOM and the AACN, are recognizing the need and importance of educating students and professionals about working together as a team.

06:52 It is not one profession's responsibility to make sure disciplines are working together, it's everyone's responsibility. It is essential that every professional be knowledgeable about effective communication, effective time management, embrace diversity, practice teamwork and have knowledge of conflict resolution.

07:21 This has been Interdisciplinary Collaboration and I'm Jessica Spellman.