interprofessional collaboration
Thoughts??
They define interprofessional collaboration as when multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds work together with patients, families, caregivers, and communities to deliver the highest quality of care. (Vega & Bernard, 2016, para. 4). Different care providers whether it be doctors, social workers, dieticians, nurses, chaplains, pharmacists, nursing assistance, etc., all coming together and communicate the care of a patient holistically for their wellbeing and safety. The interprofessional collaboration will help reduce errors, provide high-quality care, and increase safety only if all the above work together.
For example, if a physician orders a drug for a child and mistakenly used dosage for an adult and faxed to the pharmacy. The pharmacist sees the order, then calls the nurse to confirm if the order is for an adult or a pediatric. The nurse let the pharmacist know it mistakenly written and called the doctor to clarify the order. Just imagine if there was no interprofessional collaboration communication among health care workers what that drug should have done to that child. This child’s life saved because the pharmacist caught the error and acted fast by letting the nurse know, who then called the physician to clarify the order.
The current trend that will require more, or change the nature of, interprofessional collaboration is the shortages of drugs in America. An example of a drug short in the market is norepinephrine. This drug used to treat septic shock continues to plague health care providers and patients, particularly for generic injectable medications, and shortages take an immense toll on patients and the health care system (DeVore, 2020). Knowing that this drug saves a life, collaboration with the manufacturers, the FDA, and other drug companies are essential to make this mediation available to people and at a low cost.
