Nursing Interprofessional Collaboration: Barriers and Potential Solutions
Indira Pehar
NURS208
Nursing Interprofessional Collaboration: Barriers and Potential Solutions
The number of individuals actively involved in the care of the modern patient has continued to increase. In this increasingly collaborative healthcare environment, it has become immensely important to improve interdisciplinary collaboration among the various members of the healthcare team and address failures in collaborative practices. Recent studies have found that these failures in collaboration among healthcare team members are responsible for as many as 70% of adverse events (Laschinger & Smith, 2013). The World Health Organization (WHO) has also emphasized this …show more content…
More specifically, new graduate nurses lacking self-confidence when interacting with physicians created a barrier in disseminating information and voicing legitimate concerns regarding patient care (Pfaff et al., 2014). This is also applicable to communication with families of patients and other members of the staff. Much of this can be rooted to lack of experience in interacting with other healthcare professionals. This highlights the need for opportunities for direct interprofessional interactions during nursing education. Various interviews and focus groups with new graduate nurses have also consistently proposed the incorporation of opportunities for interaction among students of various disciplines – medical students, nursing students, PT/OT students etc (Gilligan, Outram, Levett-Jones, 2014). Additionally, understanding the roles of various members of the healthcare team is a possible solution to address self-confidence. This needs to be incorporated at the education level and professional level with transparency in roles. This aligns with the research showing deficits in new graduate nurses’ understanding of who/how to contact when, and deficiencies in conflict resolution skills – knowing how to address conflict and challenge negative behavior. This stems from the aforementioned lack of self-confidence as well as a gap in knowledge provided by the working …show more content…
Education models, healthcare teams, and overarching organizations that provide access to opportunity, information, support, and resources for interprofessional collaboration conveys both support and value for an effective interprofessional approach to care (Laschinger & Smith, 2013). Part of this supportive team environment involves methods that encourage questions and clearly outline avenues for attaining information. An additional component is respectful interactions among team members. New graduate nurses identified disrespectful interactions with physicians and ancillary staff as significant barriers to collaboration (Pfaff et al., 2014). Additionally, new graduates’ perceptions of leadership behaviors and their own empowerment was significantly related to feeling respected by other healthcare professionals and believing other healthcare professionals valued their knowledge and roles in patient care (Laschinger & Smith, 2013). Furthermore, at the organization level, lack of formal support from institutional leaders was identified as a significant barrier for collaboration (Pfaff et al., 2014). This barrier can be significantly addressed through upper management training, orientation structure, and access to resources. Visible, stable, and accessible managers and nurse mentors strongly facilitated effective interprofessional collaboration, particularly for new graduate
Indira Pehar
NURS208
Nursing Interprofessional Collaboration: Barriers and Potential Solutions
The number of individuals actively involved in the care of the modern patient has continued to increase. In this increasingly collaborative healthcare environment, it has become immensely important to improve interdisciplinary collaboration among the various members of the healthcare team and address failures in collaborative practices. Recent studies have found that these failures in collaboration among healthcare team members are responsible for as many as 70% of adverse events (Laschinger & Smith, 2013). The World Health Organization (WHO) has also emphasized this …show more content…
More specifically, new graduate nurses lacking self-confidence when interacting with physicians created a barrier in disseminating information and voicing legitimate concerns regarding patient care (Pfaff et al., 2014). This is also applicable to communication with families of patients and other members of the staff. Much of this can be rooted to lack of experience in interacting with other healthcare professionals. This highlights the need for opportunities for direct interprofessional interactions during nursing education. Various interviews and focus groups with new graduate nurses have also consistently proposed the incorporation of opportunities for interaction among students of various disciplines – medical students, nursing students, PT/OT students etc (Gilligan, Outram, Levett-Jones, 2014). Additionally, understanding the roles of various members of the healthcare team is a possible solution to address self-confidence. This needs to be incorporated at the education level and professional level with transparency in roles. This aligns with the research showing deficits in new graduate nurses’ understanding of who/how to contact when, and deficiencies in conflict resolution skills – knowing how to address conflict and challenge negative behavior. This stems from the aforementioned lack of self-confidence as well as a gap in knowledge provided by the working …show more content…
Education models, healthcare teams, and overarching organizations that provide access to opportunity, information, support, and resources for interprofessional collaboration conveys both support and value for an effective interprofessional approach to care (Laschinger & Smith, 2013). Part of this supportive team environment involves methods that encourage questions and clearly outline avenues for attaining information. An additional component is respectful interactions among team members. New graduate nurses identified disrespectful interactions with physicians and ancillary staff as significant barriers to collaboration (Pfaff et al., 2014). Additionally, new graduates’ perceptions of leadership behaviors and their own empowerment was significantly related to feeling respected by other healthcare professionals and believing other healthcare professionals valued their knowledge and roles in patient care (Laschinger & Smith, 2013). Furthermore, at the organization level, lack of formal support from institutional leaders was identified as a significant barrier for collaboration (Pfaff et al., 2014). This barrier can be significantly addressed through upper management training, orientation structure, and access to resources. Visible, stable, and accessible managers and nurse mentors strongly facilitated effective interprofessional collaboration, particularly for new graduate