Week 3 Discussion: Intra- and Interdisciplinary Collaborative Practice Examples
A perfect example of an interprofessional collaboration entails the reduction of catheter associated infections UTIs at a facility. Both nurses and physicians play an important role in such a program. Both the nursing and the physician teams will work towards the commonality of reducing the infections. The nurses played a role in providing patient education and taking care of the needs of the patients. On the other hand, physicians participated in the formulation of the necessary interventions including antibiotic injections, which was done in collaboration with the nurses. Indeed, each morning, the teams met to assess the individual needs of each patient and revise or create a new intervention. As such, such a collaboration would lead to the achievement of the intended objective.
Moreover, an intraprofessional collaboration may occur when a nurse leader introduces morning huddle routine for the nurse leaders of various teams and even the staff. During such meetings, the nurses will meet to discuss various issues affecting the various units in the previous day. Indeed, matters such as staffing issues, patient grievances, and ED wait time will feature. During the huddles, the nurses will be tasked to provide solutions or how they can address the issues by making recommendations to their leaders. Also, an action plan will be established as a consequence of the meeting and the same conveyed to various nursing units by their respective leaders. By doing that, the nurses will have acted intraprofessionally to solve common issues that affect their units.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health in this week’s Learning Resources indicates there are 3 million members of the nursing profession in the United States, composing the largest segment of health care workers. As the health care field continues to evolve, nurses with advanced degrees are likely to fulfill leadership roles and work collaboratively with other health care professionals to improve access to care and promote quality. The AACN and the IOM stress the importance of intra- and interprofessional collaboration.
In this week’s media presentation, “The Professional Role of the DNP Prepared Nurse,” Dr. Stanley, Dr. Stefan, and Dr. Beechinor discuss the value of intra- and interprofessional collaboration across the spectrum of health care delivery. Dr. Beechinor also speaks about the benefits of engaging in collaboration during a doctoral program, and how this can aid students as they prepare for new professional roles. The experts also discuss why collaboration is essential for nursing research.