Pros And Cons Of Interprofessional Communication

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Interprofessional collaboration is crucial for health care practitioners because it promotes teamwork which increases patient safety. This paper will analyze a scenario with interprofessional competencies using the Canadian Interprofessional Health Collaborative model (CIHC, 2010). Impacts and strategies of these competencies on the scenario will then be discussed. The two interprofessional competencies that are relevant to the scenario is team functioning and interprofessional communication. Team functioning and interprofessional communication are fundamental competencies for interprofessional collaboration because they promote effective teamwork, communication, and patient safety. The scenario occurred on a general medicine ward in a hospital …show more content…

Within the scenario, there was a lack of communication between the resident and nurse. There were no established principles for communication on the unit. Nurses could write on a bulletin board if they had a non-urgent matter to discuss with the doctors. The other method for communicating with doctors was to directly page them. Interprofessional rounds occur only once a week which does not account for the communication required between the doctor and nurse on a daily basis. There were no other formal communication methods for when doctors can speak to nurses. Nurses hear from doctors if they happened by chance to have seen the doctor, by word of mouth from other members, or from orders. The resident in the scenario did not seek out the nurse for second opinions and did not let her know about discharge plans. Thus, there was a lack of communication about care …show more content…

Research has shown that ineffective communication between nurses and physicians may adversely affect hospital readmissions and other outcomes such as length of stay (Manojlovich, 2010). This research paper is a theory paper developed from a review of the literature on nurse and physician communication. In the scenario, the patient was negatively affected by the intravenous medications because the fluids ran late into the night and disturbed the patient’s sleep-wake cycle. The other patient who was discharged had a new occurrence of loose bowel movements. Because no further testing was done on the discharged patient, this patient was at risk for readmission if their loose bowel movements are indicative of a new disease process. This demonstrates irresponsibility for both the resident and nurse because they were unable to collaboratively participate in providing patient centered care. When health care professionals fail to collaborate, patient care is negatively affected. Therefore, interprofessional communication is essential for promoting effective

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