Collaboration is essential in healthcare because it creates a unified team working toward the goal of creating the optimal environment for patient care. This paper will differentiate the multiple forms of collaboration, define essential characteristics of collaboration, identify barriers to collaboration, and describe an experience with collaboration.
Forms of Collaboration
The different forms of collaboration’s definitions are often interwoven, but do have minute, but noteworthy differences. Multidisciplinary collaboration is multiple team members from different backgrounds merely acknowledge the importance of the contributions of the different disciplines (Carter & Hanson, 2014). Interdisciplinary collaboration …show more content…
These characteristics include clinical competence and accountability, common purpose, effective communication, trust, mutual respect, recognize and value diverse knowledge and skills, and humor (Carter & Hanson, 2014). If clinicians are competent in their abilities and have accountability for their words and actions, it creates trust and respect (Carter & Hanson, 2014). This writer has strength in competence, accountability, and humor, often using humor to lighten a difficult situation. An overall collaboration strength rating would be a seven. Areas in need of further development are trust, effective communication, and acceptance of diverse knowledge background. A lack of knowledge of other disciplines causes a delay in action affection overall collaboration (Dumez, 2011). This writer needs to continue to learn the aspects of care within other disciplines to allow for effective collaboration; without it the potential to act alone without holistic care in mind will occur. Modifying communication to eliminate aggressiveness is also essential to develop. Advanced practice nurses (APN), need to learn and practice assertiveness, not aggressiveness, as a foundational element of communication (Carter & Hanson, 2014). Aggressiveness is viewed as overbearing, and shuts down communication lines, diminishing the effectiveness of the …show more content…
Lack of self- confidence affects interactions with other heathcare providers, patients, and families, as well influencing the ability to delegate tasks to ancillary staff (Pfaff, Baxter, Jack, & Ploeg, 2014). An additional individual barrier is ineffective communication skills. According to an article by Pfaff et al (2014), communication deficiencies are often found in conflict resolution, and as a result of passive communication. Another barrier to collaboration is divergence between physicians and nurses. Regardless of improvements in the nurse and physician relationship, nursing continues to be socially positioned and understood as inferior to medicine (Price, Doucet, & Hall, 2014). This writer has encountered this barrier multiple times during care of critical patients. Each time persistence in vocalizing professionally the concerns have been helpful. Additionally, evidence based articles may persuade physicians to listen more attentively if this same issue is encountered again. The physician to nurse social barrier is overcome with diligence in revealing competence, intelligence, confidence, and trust (Carter, & Hanson, 2014). Another possible barrier to collaboration is the, lack of knowledge, and confusion found within APN role and scope of practice (Schadewaldt, McInnes, Hiller, &Gardner, 2013). Current legislation on APN scope of practice differ by state, this variance can create additional barriers to