It has been long established that the key to quality patient care is an integrated approach to health care services, assuming medical professionals pay attention to every aspect of patient care. However, whereas every medical professional has a defined range of responsibilities, lack of accounting for other clinical aspects serves as a detrimental factor to patient outcomes. For this reason, the notion of interprofessional collaboration has been introduced to medical practice, presupposing the process “when multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds provide comprehensive services by working with patients, their families, carers, and communities to deliver the highest quality of care across settings” (Gilles et al., 2020, p. 1). There are various benefits to interprofessional collaboration in the clinical environment, namely, better patient outcomes, lower readmission risks, higher team morale, and job satisfaction rates, and personalized holistic care for each patient (Gilles et al., 2020). For this reason, it is highly recommended interprofessional collaboration be encouraged and implemented across clinical spaces.
The emergence of multidisciplinary teams as a primary treatment and intervention method has changed the perception of interprofessional collaboration significantly, making it a necessity rather than an option. For example, in the context of geriatric care, interdisciplinarity is key to quality outcomes. The multidisciplinary team includes physiotherapists, physicians, nurses, and mental health professionals. According to the researchers, the efficient management of such integrated care presupposes care meetings that account for establishing cooperation and interaction between the professionals in order to obtain their perspective on the patient’s treatment (Asakawa et al., 2017). Hence, regular meetings and exchanging data can be considered vital procedures in the way of efficient interprofessional collaboration.
References
Asakawa, T., Kawabata, H., Kisa, K., Terashita, T., Murakami, M., & Otaki, J. (2017). Establishing community-based integrated care for elderly patients through interprofessional teamwork: A qualitative analysis. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 10, 399-407. Web.
Gilles, I., Filliettaz, S. S., Berchtold, P., & Peytremann-Bridevaux, I. (2020). Financial barriers decrease benefits of interprofessional collaboration within integrated care programs: results of a nationwide survey. International Journal of Integrated Care, 20(1), 1-9. Web.