Intra- and Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Practice

Intra- and Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Practice

Undisciplined teams are composed of many providers coming from a single background. Such a team includes a group of public health nurses who provide home care. The team members share similar training and professional skills, function in the same role, and speak a common language. Besides, interdisciplinary collaboration relates to instances where there is the integration of knowledge and methods from different disciplines using a real synthesis of approaches. Based on the World Healthcare Organization, interprofessional collaboration is when “multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds work together with patients, families, carers (caregivers), and communities to deliver the highest quality of care” (Wei et al, 2020)

Different strategies can be employed to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration. Some of these strategies include encouraging the issue of social interaction through small events, the use of team-building exercises, rewards, breaking down office silos and use open plan working areas, enhancing effective communication and creativity, and the use of technology platforms (Keys, Silverman & Evans, 2017). Some of the strategies I would propose to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration in practice include the provision of platforms for social interaction. The strategy involves getting the interdepartmental teams to try and collaborate through corporate citizenship activities. Corporate social responsibility describes the charitable contributions by organizations to their communities. Some activities would include workplace activities like charitable runs, clothing donations, and corporate blood donations. The other strategy includes rewarding and recognizing the staff.

Many of the job performance goals are evaluated on personal levels. Incorporating goals and rewards oriented to the team is necessary. It is also necessary to award and recognize the group accomplishments with accolades such as catered lunches, team outings, or hiring a massage therapist to offer services to the staff in their place of work (Zhu et al., 2019). Another strategy is incorporating team-building activities. These activities can range from small to large scale, although not necessarily for large price tags. Some of them include a shark tank, where one breaks the team into small groups and lets them pitch a new idea for the organization. The other strategy is to advocate for open communication. One of the ways to accomplish this is through boosting cooperation by having round table input in brainstorming sessions and meetings. Such a strategy will help the quitter members within a team who feel out of place during group settings but have valuable input.

Reference

Keys, Y., Silverman, S. R., & Evans, J. (2017). Identification of tools and techniques to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration during design and construction projects. HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 10(5), 28-38

Wei, H., Corbett, R. W., Ray, J., & Wei, T. L. (2020). A culture of caring: the essence of healthcare interprofessional collaboration. Journal of interprofessional care, 34(3), 324- 331

Zhu, Y., Chen, T., Wang, M., Jin, Y., & Wang, Y. (2019). Rivals or allies: How performance-proven goal orientation influences knowledge hiding. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 40(7), 849-868.

Intra- and Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Practice

Question 

As a charge nurse on an inpatient psychiatric unit, I had the opportunity to collaborate with other members of the treatment team, including psychiatrists, advanced practice providers, therapists, and social workers. Contandriopoulos et al. (2015) point out that effective communication is key to successful collaboration. To help facilitate communication, we held treatment team meetings twice per week. In these meetings, we discussed each patient, giving each member of the team the opportunity to provide their input and express concerns. This was valuable in providing the best care possible for our patients.