Integration of Interprofessional Perspectives That Support Quality Improvement

Interprofessional collaboration is important to improve the safety of quality of care. The interprofessional perspectives critical to the hospice program are transformational leaders and interdisciplinary collaboration. Identifying these perspectives and incorporating them into the QI initiatives will improve patient outcomes. The healthcare system is one big machine with interdependent parts, and hence a problem in one part will affect other parts (Huber & Joseph, 2021). The issues in the hospice program may affect other departments and hinder the organization from achieving its mission and vision. For instance, the poor performance of nurses can affect the performance of hospice physicians, social workers, and chaplains. Therefore, promoting interprofessional collaboration is important since it improves safety and quality of care (Schot et al., 2019). Transformational leadership promotes interpersonal relationships among team members. As a result, this will stimulate collaboration since the team members in the hospice program will have a sense of shared goals and mission. Transformational leadership will also guide the team members to respect and value each other in care delivery.

Effective Communication Strategies to Promote Quality Improvement

Healthcare leaders should have effective communication skills to ensure the smooth running of their departments (Huber & Joseph, 2021). Poor communication strategies hamper the achievement of organizational goals. Therefore, the adopted communication strategy should promote care coordination between nurses, hospice physicians, and social workers. Leaders should also facilitate interprofessional collaboration by having effective communication skills. Practical communication strategies include training in quality improvement on communication styles, including verbal, non-verbal, electronic, and paper communication. This will essentially enhance relationships within the team and improve interprofessional collaboration. The second strategy would be to promote effective documentation to allow the team members to document any healthcare-related data and provide feedback on improving the QI initiative.

Conclusion

Healthcare organizations must be guided by healthcare data and quality indicators when implementing quality improvement initiatives to improve healthcare outcomes. Assessment of quality and safety like the one conducted on the hospice programs identifies several shortcomings that negatively affect the quality of care, such as inadequate staffing due to poor leadership styles. Leadership is critical since it guides team members to align their professional values with organizational goals to improve patient safety. Leadership is, however, multifactorial. It depends on teamwork, interprofessional collaboration, professional values, and competent healthcare professionals. Therefore, healthcare leaders should be trained on appropriate leadership strategies to promote teamwork and effective communication and improve healthcare outcomes.

References

Collins, E., Owen, P., Digan, J., & Dunn, F. (2019). Applying transformational leadership in nursing practice. Nursing Standard, 35(5), 59-66. https://doi.org/10.7748/ns.2019.e11408