Teamwork and Collaboration

636 words | 3 page(s)

Efficient healthcare relies on medical personnel’s ability to collaborate while treating a patient, who relies on physicians to make informed decisions regarding diagnosis and treatment that would be consistent with patient’s individual characteristics, and on professional nurses to deliver the prescribed treatment and provide needed care in professional and consistent way. Close cooperation between physician and nurses is crucial for provision of proper quality healthcare services, as doctors rely on nurses for obtaining unique information about their patients, and nurses rely on proper communication from physicians to be able to deliver the needed treatment. The lack of effective collaboration was linked to over 70% of major medical errors (Fewster-Thuente, 2015), which proves once again that collaboration and teamwork knowledge and skills, as well as the ability to recognize and neutralize obstacles to effective communication make up essential competencies of modern nurse.

Collaboration between healthcare professionals has been recognized as a crucial component of effective treatment by many nursing theorists and by practicing doctors and nurses themselves. Yet, the quality of collaboration between doctors and nurses remains unsatisfactory, as perceived and reported by healthcare professionals themselves, which may stand in the way of providing patients with the high quality efficient treatment.

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Among possible reasons collaboration sometimes fails in healthcare facilities researchers name unhealthy communication tendencies between staff. Namely, a number of studies report patriarchal relationship between nurses and physicians as a major barrier to effective collaboration as nurses are not treated as partners in decision-making process while they are the ones who possess crucial information about patients that doctors should be relying on (Fewster-Thuente, 2015). The ability to recognize and minimize lateral violence of this sort was recognized as one of the crucial competences of professional nurse (Massachusetts Department of Higher Education Nursing Initiative, 2016).

Further, difficulty obtaining advice from provider knowledgeable in the pressing question has also been named as an obstacle to collaboration (Fewster-Thuente, 2015). Collaboration is effective as long as people with different knowledge and skills can share and contribute their perspectives to decision-making process. Whenever a provide who possess specific knowledge about certain patient is not available, the whole treatment process may be disturbed. Hence, it is crucial that team members keep in touch consistently.

Healthy collaboration between healthcare professionals relies on recognition of differences between people’s expertise and experience regarding various questions and value of these differences in the team of medical experts, capacity to distribute roles and responsibilities according to individual strengths and weaknesses, viewing curing a patient as a mutual goal, and practicing civil and positive communication between team members (Massachusetts Department of Higher Education Nursing Initiative, 2016). The named components of effective team collaboration produce better outcomes for patients as well as fosters job satisfaction in healthcare personnel.

Effective collaboration between physicians and nurses facilitates better treatment results for patients. This is achieved by doctors and care providers being on the same page in terms of treatment strategy and constant information exchange between nurses and doctors that ensures prompt reaction to patient’s responses to interventions and timely adjustment of treatment plan according to patient’s individual needs. This results in better treatment results and shorter hospital stays.

Lastly, consistent team collaboration and inclusive communication contribute to development of friendly relations between team members. Satisfactory communication and positive relations between colleagues have been linked greater job satisfaction and higher level of perceived personal responsibility responsibility which translates into better performance.

Drawing conclusions, teamwork and collaboration are essential components of quality healthcare service. Research indicates, that healthy collaboration between nurses and physicians produces better outcomes for patients and fosters job satisfaction in personnel. While the benefits of consistent teamwork are known, further research is needed to assess various team building techniques and their effectiveness for healthcare. All in all, collaboration allows healthcare professionals to bring together their unique knowledge and experience to provide patients with better quality care.

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