FPX4010 assessment 1
Hello. I am <insert your name>. Welcome to my video presentation of Collaboration and Leadership Reflection for <insert course code and title>.
Let me review the case study for this presentation
The setting is a hospice that provides palliative care to patients with chronic health conditions. Apart from managing symptoms, the facility offers emotional support and spiritual care to patients and their families. As the nurse in charge of the interprofessional team, my role is to establish ways of improving collaboration in the team. The team members are nurses, doctors, chaplains, social workers, and volunteers. During our interaction, the members highlighted various issues that require improvement. They include communication, ethical dilemmas, insufficient emotional support, and care coordination issues. The team uncovered that cultural and spiritual diversity compromised cooperation with different families. The chaplain recognized that members had limited knowledge of skills outside their expertise. As a result, there was the risk of performing unassigned roles and compromising holistic care. Poor documentation and sharing of information compromised care decisions significantly.
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Let us reflect on an interdisciplinary collaboration experience
Multiple personal factors motivated the team members to achieve the desired outcomes. Djaharuddin and colleagues (2023) postulate that accommodating different personal values leads to open-mindedness among team members. As a result, people approve and appreciate diverse opinions. Moreover, commitment to their professions maximizes positive outcomes when collaborating in an interprofessional team (Djaharuddin et al., 2023). Similarly, team members of this palliative care facility recognized and appreciated each other’s roles in caring for the patients. For instance, Dr. Richardson’s acceptance to involve a social worker and a chaplain in counseling families shows recognition of colleagues’ contributions to achieving holistic care. Team members express individual efforts in solving patients’ problems. For instance, the lead social worker’s effort to mediate feuds to help family members consent to treatment plans portrays commitment to an individual’s profession. Additionally, team members do not blame each other for the team’s failures. They view them as challenges that strengthen the team.
There are multiple aspects of collaboration that the team could have improved. The first aspect is team leadership. A team leader delineates roles for each team member and allocates tasks depending on an individual’s expertise. Also, the leader defines the team’s direction and motivates members to overcome challenges when doing their work (Brown et al., 2023). In this care setting, the team lacks a leader. As a result, members lack emotional support when fulfilling their duties. For instance, the nurse complained of emotional burnout when handling complex cases. The lack of team leadership led to gaps in defining duties and setting role boundaries for the members. For instance, the hospice volunteer uncovered that she was unaware of her boundaries at work. Also, the doctor’s decision to intervene to end opinion differences among family members without involving the social worker and a chaplain shows a lack of clear guidelines on role parameters. Active communication is another aspect that the team could have improved. In an interprofessional team, active communication involves the timely transmission of information to the right people. Also, it recommends allocating some duties to colleagues to minimize work burdens and burnout (Dhajaruddin et al., 2023). In the case study, team members should address communication gaps to strengthen collaboration. For instance, the doctor complained about changing the pain management plan for one of his patients. However, care providers on the evening shift did not access information about the changes. Moreover, the hospice volunteer’s complaints concerning insufficient documentation and sharing of information signify a communication problem among the team members.
Poor collaboration can result in inefficient management of human and financial resources.
There are multiple instances in which the team did not collaborate effectively. First, there was late communication regarding changes to the pain management regimen for the patients. Mr. Magalski was one of the affected patients. Another instance regarding communication occurred when there was insufficient documentation and sharing of information. As a result, the hospice volunteer could not offer appropriate care support to Mr. Chen. In another instance, the nurse cited insufficient emotional support and burnout. The case in which there was a mix-up of medications for Mr. Patel highlighted care coordination issues within the team. Some team members handled ethical conflicts without consulting their colleagues. For instance, Dr. Richardson admitted to solving family differences without involving the chaplain and social worker. In another case, the lead social worker solved cultural diversity and family differences without involving the rest of the team, despite his decisions affecting patient care. The chaplain uncovered another instance that highlighted insufficient training and education of team members. In an interaction with one of the nurses, the chaplain realized that the nurse lacked knowledge of integrating spiritual practices into the care plans. Moreover, the instance in which the chaplain had to scale down a spiritual retreat he had organized due to financial constraints highlighted minimal collaboration with the facility’s finance section.
Lack of collaboration has negative implications for the human and financial resources of an interdisciplinary team and the organization. Communication failures and delays increase the risk of legal suits for the team members and the organization. According to Adler (2023), incomplete, ambiguous, and delayed information leads to medical mistakes, such as incorrect medication or delayed treatment. Such medical errors may attract lawsuits against the personnel and facility (Adler, 2023). Additionally, poor documentation can mislead a healthcare provider when deciding on the type of care to give a particular patient (Adler, 2023). For instance, ineffective documentation misled the hospice volunteer to subject Mr. Chen to music therapy, which was inappropriate as per his needs at that time. Emotional burnouts emerge from failure to delegate duties to other team members. Ratcliff (2024) maintains that people who fail to delegate authority bear extended pressure, which leads to physical and emotional exhaustion. As a result, emotionally exhausted individuals overlook self-care practices and experience job dissatisfaction. Consequently, job dissatisfaction motivates affected employees to leave an organization. In return, the affected organization incurs high costs of recruiting and training new staff members.
Let us review best practice leadership strategies that would improve an interdisciplinary team’s ability to achieve its goals.
Establishing team leadership that embraces team mentorship is one of the ways through which the team would improve its ability to achieve its goals. Appointing a team leader would ensure that the interdisciplinary team has a person to articulate its vision and encourage members to work in partnership. The leader achieves this by defining roles, allocating tasks, and following up with the members to ensure they complete individual assignments (Brown et al., 2023). In this scenario, a team leader would establish clear role guidelines for each member. The guidelines establish parameters within which members fulfill their duties. However, the team experienced the problem of overlapping duties (Brown et al., 2023). For example, the doctor could solve problems that require the expertise of a chaplain and a lead social worker. Such an overlap can generate problems that compromise collaboration. However, a team leader should evaluate overlapping duties and formulate interdisciplinary solutions to the team’s problems (Brown et al., 2023). Additionally, team mentorship supports diverse approaches to a problem. A leader would support team mentorship by training the members to equip them with knowledge of aspects of care outside their areas of expertise. A leader should encourage team members to interact regularly and strive to learn from one another. As a result, members experience professional development as they learn skills from their highly experienced colleagues (Brown et al., 2023).
I chose team leadership as the best strategy for multiple reasons. First, a team leader spells out the direction of a team. The team leader establishes a path for team members to follow. Additionally, team leadership prioritizes the interests and needs of team members. As a result, they feel appreciated. The sense of appreciation motivates team members to collaborate to achieve shared goals. Generally, team leadership guides the team to achieve particular goals and objectives by defining roles, solving problems, and supporting the professional development of team members.
Finally, let us explore best-practice interdisciplinary collaboration strategy that can help the team achieve its goals and collaborate
Open communication is the best strategy to achieve collaboration in an interdisciplinary team. According to Djaharuddin and colleagues (2023), open communication entails removing obstacles that hinder direct interaction to exchange ideas and share information. Brown and colleagues (2023) add that open communication motivates members to participate actively in team conversations. Such interaction strengthens trust and cohesion among team members. As a result, they develop motivation to work as partners.
Various factors influenced my choice of open communication as the best strategy to achieve collaboration in this team. First, open communication would enable timely access to information to eliminate missed care priorities and late treatment. Additionally, open interaction would expose team members to knowledge of their colleagues’ roles. Consequently, they would learn some skills of holistic care. Moreover, open communication would support consultations and sharing of duties among the team members. The strategy would eliminate instances of operating outside given parameters, which increases the risk of disputes. Also, it would ensure a smooth transition during shift changes and avoid a mix-up of drugs. Therefore, open communication solves most of the challenges that the team experiences.
References
Alder, S. (2023, December 23). Effects of poor communication in healthcare. The HIPAA Journal. Accessed May 14, 2024. https://www.hipaajournal.com/effects-of-poor-communication-in-healthcare/
Brown, S.A. et al. (2023). Team principles for successful interdisciplinary research teams. American Heart Journal Plus: Cardiology Research and Practice, 32: 100306. doi: 10.1016/j.ahjo.2023.100306
Djaharuddin, I. et al. (2023). Factors influencing the implementation of interprofessional collaborative practice in teaching hospital setting: A mixed-method study. Journal of Advances in Medical Education and Professionalism, 11(4): 213-221.
Ratcliff, M. (2024). Social workers, burnout, and self-care: A public health issue. Delaware Journal of Public Health. Doi: 10.32481/djph.2024.03.05 Do my FlexPath work
