Essay On Interprofessional Collaboration

Enhancing Interprofessional Collaboration
Introduction
The Canadian Interprofessional Health Collaborative (CIHC) competencies defines interprofessional collaboration as “the partnership between a team of health care providers and a client in a participatory, collaborative and coordinated approach to shared decision-making around health and social issues” (2010, pp). To guide health care providers in achieving interprofessional collaboration Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance (HPHA) designed an interprofessional practice model (IPM). The HPHA IPM has four key domains; role clarity/scope of practice, interprofessional collaborative practice, professional development, and evidence informed practice.
This paper will explore how to enhance interprofessional competencies that result in greater collaboration at the point of care. An anonymized real life professional encounter is described in detail and used to depict issues seen with interprofessional collaboration. An in-depth analysis using the HPHA

IPM framework (Appendix A) is also conducting using two domains, role clarity/scope of practice, and interprofessional collaborative practice. Two practical strategies that promote effective collaboration are appraised (Appendix B), described, and applied to the issues in the encounter. Finally a discussion is provided on the student’s growth and evolution as an informal collaborative leader at the point of care.
Professional Practice Encounter
In the oncology-haematology ward at Juravinski Hospital, the model of care is an interprofessional one.

Interprofessional care is defined as “the provision of comprehensive health services to patients by multiple health caregivers who work collaboratively to deliver quality care within and across settings” (HPHA Interprofessional Practice Model, 2010). With this model, multiple health care providers will write orders in the patients chart on any given day. The oncology physician will review the chart and provide an authorizing signature to carry out the order. In this one instance the oncologist complained to the nurse about other health professionals ordering tests that in her opinion were not needed, and that the area of concern they were ordering tests for fell within her scope of practice. If she were concerned, she would have ordered the test herself. The physician proceeded to look at who ordered the test, and mocked them for being an intern without proper

knowledge.
This professional practice encounter is an example of maladaptive professional collaboration. In this example there is no clear understanding of each providers scope of practice. As well, there is a lack of respect being shown by the oncology physician, which will only serve to hinder trust between care providers, making interprofessional collaboration that much more difficult (HPHA Interprofessional Practice Model, 2010). Recent evidence suggests that improvement in teamwork in healthcare can lead to significant gains in patient safety, measured against efficiency of care, complication rate and mortality (Weller, Boyd & Cumin, 2014). As such, I will be discussing strategies that promote or further enhance effective collaboration between health care providers.