Reflective Essay on Nursing Practice-Free-Samples for Student

Inter-professional issues rising in a multidisciplinary healthcare scenario leads to affecting the patient safety along with the quality of the care, hence these issues hold grave importance in the context of providing safe and effective care to a patient (Anderson, Gray & Price, 2017). Th
e first issue selected is the lack of effective communication in the inter-professional team which is one of the most frequent and reported kind of inter-professional issue in the health care teams. According to the Allen, Elliott and Jackson (2017), the lack of inter-professional collaborative practice, especially when related to the effective communication between the team members, there is a high probability of professional silos and a health care delivering process that is fragmented affecting the patient safety and effectiveness of the care. In support, Delunas and Rouse (2014) have stated that the lack pf effective communication among the health care professionals are the most prominent risk to medical errors and a much elevated risk to the safety and welfare of the patients. In support the authors have stated that the lack of effective communication between the members can easily lead to different handover and patient chart related errors subsequently threatening the health and safety of the patients under care. Hence it can be stated that this is an issue that impacts the patient safety subsequently with fatal risk to the patients as, hence I have chosen communication gap to be the first issue in the assignment. Communication issue is undoubtedly a huge restriction in the path for effective team work and achievement of subsequent team goals. On a more exploratory note, from my personal workshop experience, I have noticed that lack of proper communication can easily lead to negative outcomes for the entire team. In the workshop, we had to prepare a role playing scenario preparing handover for a patient requiring emergency medical attention. However, all our team members could not perform effective communication and ended up not being able to achieve the inter-professional outcome for the workshop. Hence, as directed by the Delunas and Rouse, (2014), communication gap is a fundamental barrier to effective team work in the health care scenario and there is need for emphasis on communication skill enhancement training for the health care staff to avoid communication related mishaps.

The next chosen Inter-professional issue is the team-working capability of each and every team member of the inter-professional or multidisciplinary care team. As mentioned by the Manser (2009), the process of providing health care has become inherently interdisciplinary and as a result a variety of different health care professional belonging to different specialties are required to work within a team setting and hence adequate team performance is crucial for ensuring the patient safety and effective care. As mentioned by the Weller, Barrow and Gasquoine, (2011), the lack of coordination or poor coordination at various levels of organization has been proved to affect the quality and the safety of the patient care that is being provided to them. In support, the Currie and White (2012), have stated that the sectors of health care that is the most affected by the lack of proper coordination and teamworking abilities is the assessment follow up, laboratory testing and safeguarding the conflicting information. As a result, teamwork and collaboration have become the sole focus for system based interventions and improvement of the patient safety and implementation of the medical education standards (Hull, 2016). Hence, this issue has been chosen as the second core inter-professional issue for this essay. Reflecting on my own workshop experience the second activity required us to make a pyramid with paper and balloons in a standing position. With exceptional teamwork skills exhibited and proper cooperation and collaboration, my team had been able to achieve the IP outcome for this activity easily. Hence, I would like to state that with proper understanding and cooperation among each other and establishing a dignified respectful culture in the team can help in improving the team-working ability and enhance safety and effectiveness of the care provided.

The third selected issue is lack of understanding of the professional roles and responsibilities between the different members of any inter-professional teams. As explained by the Suter et al. (2009), collaborative patient centred practice relies heavily on the ability of all of the members of an inter-professional team to be able to understand their responsibilities and slip into the required professional roles. Delunas & Rouse (2014), are of the opinion that there is a significant lack of conceptual clarity among the health care professional regarding their professional roles and responsibilities. In support, Légaré et al. (2014), have stated that this active ingredient of collaborative practice is missing in most health care organized due to the lack of real world practice scenario based training and the wide gap between theory and practice. As a result, the impact of their inability to understand their job roles and responsibilities leads to affecting the quality and safety of the care. According to my opinion, from the first activity of the workshop we were required to match job roles and professional responsibilities. Many of us did well in that group activity however, we still faced a few doubts and challenges as a few job roles and responsibilities were nit clear to us. Hence it can be stated that there is need for coursework initiatives and training to bridge the gap between theory and practice so that we can provide safe and effective care to the patients.

The last issue is the lack of prompt decision making which is another important issue in inter-professional teams affecting the safety of care. According to the Légaré et al. (2014), often the care professionals are faced with emergency situations where prompt decision making among the inter-professional team is essential to take clinically reasonable actions to save the lives of the patient. In support, the Currie and White (2012), have stated that lack of prompt decision making in an inter-professional care team can lead to lack of adequate actions being taken in an emergency scenarios and resulting in severe exacerbations in the patients. With prompt and effective decision taken in an emergency situation, the collaborative care goals can easily be achieved from the workshop experience, as well in the second activity our team was able to take prompt decisions very easily and each of members performed with adequate emphasis on the respective tasks which helped us achieve the IP outcomes easily. Hence, without prompt decision making and shared decision making it is impossible for the any inter-professional team to function effectively and maintain safe and effective care practices (Allen, Elliott & Jackson, 2017).

On a concluding note, it has to be mentioned that the most important and impactful issue in an inter-professional care team scenario was discovered to be the communication which restricted our success in the last and most important activity of the workshop. Effective communication and interaction skills aid in developing a secure practice framework for proving quality care and maintaining optimal patient safety; and the inter-professional outcomes from the workshop such as communication skills, tie management, collaboration and smart distribution of responsibilities will help me exponentially n the future to perform in a car team with optimal concern to quality of the care and patient safety. This study had helped me to explore my communication skills and the drawbacks and I will be able to work on my issues in the future to build my personal inter-professional communication skills so that it can help me in the future.

References:  

Allen, E., Elliott, D., & Jackson, D. (2017). Recognising and responding to in?hospital clinical deterioration: an integrative review of interprofessional practice issues. Journal of clinical nursing. doi: 10.1111/jocn.13839

Anderson, E. S., Gray, R., & Price, K. (2017). Patient safety and interprofessional education: A report of key issues from two interprofessional workshops. Journal of interprofessional care, 31(2), 154-163. doi: 10.1080/13561820.2016.1261816

Currie, G., & White, L. (2012). Inter-professional barriers and knowledge brokering in an organizational context: the case of healthcare. Organization Studies, 33(10), 1333-1361.doi: 10.1177/0170840612457617

Delunas, L. R., & Rouse, S. (2014). Nursing and medical student attitudes about communication and collaboration before and after an interprofessional education experience. Nursing Education Perspectives, 35(2), 100-105. doi: 10.5480/11-716.1

Hull, M. (2016). Medical language proficiency: a discussion of interprofessional language competencies and potential for patient risk. International journal of nursing studies, 54, 158-172. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2015.02.015

Légaré, F., Stacey, D., Brière, N., Robitaille, H., Lord, M. C., Desroches, S., & Drolet, R. (2014). An interprofessional approach to shared decision making: an exploratory case study with family caregivers of one IP home care team. BMC geriatrics, 14(1), 83. doi: 10.1186/1471-2318-14-83.

Manser, T. (2009). Teamwork and patient safety in dynamic domains of healthcare: a review of the literature. Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica, 53(2), 143-151. doi: 10.1111/j.1399-6576.2008.01717

Stacks, D. W., & Salwen, M. B. (Eds.). (2014). An integrated approach to communication theory and research. Routledge. retrieved from https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rBWOAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=communication+theory+&ots=5CYd36dQ5P&sig=Ias35mop6V21EY8Xd_r7QScq0Ds&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=communication%20theory&f=false

Suter, E., Arndt, J., Arthur, N., Parboosingh, J., Taylor, E., & Deutschlander, S. (2009). Role understanding and effective communication as core competencies for collaborative practice. Journal of interprofessional care, 23(1), 41-51. doi: 10.1080/13561820802338579

Weller, J. M., Barrow, M., & Gasquoine, S. (2011). Interprofessional collaboration among junior doctors and nurses in the hospital setting. Medical education, 45(5), 478-487. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2010.03919