Interprofessional collaboration can be defined as the cooperative participation of diverse professional healthcare providers in collaboration with patients, families, and communities to examine and convey each other’s unique perspectives to give the best possible care. By creating interprofessional team collaboration, learning to work together, and mutual respect for one another’s viewpoints, many professions in healthcare can operate more effectively as a team to enhance patient satisfaction. As acute clinical nurses, we provide hospitalized patients with dialysis treatments. In our Hospice care setting, there is professional team collaboration comprised of physicians, aides, social workers, chaplains, volunteers, and bereavement specialists. The interprofessional team collaborates daily to review each patient’s POC and manage their symptoms.
Our core team care model offers us the freedom and flexibility to provide our customers with the best, most direct protection. At Hospice care, the nurses and other interdisciplinary teams partner with us to provide the most effective treatment and produce the best clinical outcomes. In the Hospice care setting, communication can be improved between my facility and nursing home facilities. Communication is essential because we sometimes need to improve as a team in communicating about a patient’s condition. The patient might have passed away, changed in state, required a change in medication, or no longer qualifies for services. If these are not well communicated, it may result in delayed care, poor palliative management for the patient, and increased stress for all teams involved. Additionally, emphasizing patient-centered care and fostering cooperation will be accomplished by delivering care centered on the pillars of evidence-based practice, advocacy, compassion, and resilience. From these pillars, we can improve our clinical setting in several ways: helping patients transition from an acute hospital setting to the nursing home facility or the comforts of their home and maintaining continuity of care.
Compassion
Nursing practice requires compassionate care and teamwork. A caring nurse is sympathetic to her patients’ pain and prepared to go the extra mile to improve patient morale and results (Lim & DeSteno, 2016). It is essential for enhancing relationships with other interprofessional, multidisciplinary teams as well as the clinical outcome and satisfaction of the patient. Workflow synchronization and a secure workplace can be created to contribute to compassionate interprofessional team support. As Hospice nurses, we show compassion and sympathy to our patients and their families by; establishing therapeutic connections, keenly listening to their concerns, and attending to them. Additionally, patients will feel more at ease during treatment if they are given more information and are reassured, which will help them comply with the regimen and achieve better clinical outcomes. According to Aagard and Biles (2018), compassion demonstrates empathy while establishing trust, paying attention, easing suffering, touching, and exceeding expectations.
By treating one another with respect, listening to one another, being nice to one another, working together as a team, and communicating with one another, we foster a caring workplace culture. Burridge et al. (2015) state that building self-compassion and a culture of compassion are essential among team members and will increase patient satisfaction and positive engagement. We consider fostering a caring culture via active listening, effective communication, and mutual respect. A Hospice nurse is about to insert a Foley Catheter. The nurse has to give emotional assistance, be a good listener, explain the procedure, assist ease patient worry, and use a cheerful tone of speech and body expression, to be there to demonstrate empathy and to offer gentle touches such as holding the patient’s hand if the patient is in pain or discomfort.
Advocacy
As patient advocates, nurses are essential. Because we spend more time interacting and caring for patients than we do for doctors, our job is unusual. With patients, we have a relationship based on therapeutic trust. We have educational and advocacy responsibilities as Hospice nurses, which include informing and advising patients on their care. Our commitment is to protect patient’s rights to have their voices and opinions heard regarding any proposed therapies. According to Levy (2018), nurses must be morally concerned, self-confident, tenacious, proud of their profession, and mature for advocacy to succeed. A nurse notices that her patient no longer eats, walks, or talks. Many are times when the nurses are frequently the ones who observe and see the patient’s suffering. The mistake that is often made is that we go in with our tail between our legs because we are afraid to mention “Hospice Care.”
Nurses must advocate for palliative care to physicians and other treatment team members. However, they must also ensure that patients and their families understand the benefits of palliative care. We collaborate with several collaborative teams and assist patients in keeping their values and autonomy by providing information on treatments and education about them. We also offer patients the freedom to choose what they think is best for themselves, regardless of what others may think. The clinical results and compliance, on the other hand, will both improve. The knowledge and awareness of nurses of other people’s customs and traditions will be enhanced through advocacy in clinical settings (Levy, 2018). We meet with our nurse manager once a month to discuss our issues. Advocacy ensures that patients and the environment are never endangered. We work with multidisciplinary teams to provide and improve patient happiness and get the best potential outcome for the patient.
Resilience
Resilience assists nurses in dealing with a problematic healthcare setting and reduces stress, contributing to emotional weariness and burnout. A nurse’s job is demanding, requiring continued education or learning (Pignatiello et al., 2022). Stress is caused by changing resilience. It takes constant learning, skillful stress, and adversity management for nurses to adapt to their many-faceted duties. One of the most critical factors in cultivating flexibility and adaptability is effective communication, stress management techniques, and confidence in one’s ability to increase one’s knowledge base. Other essential factors are the ability to change quickly, empowerment, and dispute resolution.
The managers provide emotional support and resilience-building strategies in our setting. Our interprofessional teams are educated on change, and we help each other to provide better care and reduce stress. Staff resilience may benefit people prepared to deal with change and care for their health and well-being. According to one source, having the skills to develop strength is necessary to continue and survive challenging jobs (Hopia & Heikkilä, 2020). The care of patients at Hospice might be complex. Since just a few treatment choices are available, patients are becoming more common and are living shorter lives. Being resilient will, therefore, significantly impact a patient’s clinical result and foster positive relationships and a sense of security in the patient.
Evidence-Based Practice
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) has been utilized in our Hospice’s interprofessional team. Change is required for the EBP to be successful in a healthcare culture. It will enhance and revolutionize our practice to produce better outcomes, improve patient care, and boost patient safety. The interprofessional collaboration team’s care and compassion minimize fear and allow the patient to believe in and appreciate the team. Interprofessional teams have shown practical communication skills. Patient surveys like the HCAHPS study indicate that this improves patient outcomes. Evidence-based practice must be included in nursing and patient care as a fundamental component of change in course. It will alter or better our working methods to increase patient safety, raise the bar for patient care, and improve risk management (VanBuskirk, 2005). Patient care has increased due to interdisciplinary solid team collaboration and communication. Additionally, using evidence-based practices in Hospice care raises the level of treatment and gives patients peace of mind.
Summary
Using the iCARE nursing model and collaborating within multidisciplinary teams is critical. The most effective treatment, clinical outcomes, and patient safety can be attained by interdisciplinary teamwork, compassion, advocacy, and resilience, all based on evidence-based practice. The significance of this breakthrough in helping patients move from short-term to long-term treatment in Hospice care settings and maintain continuity of care would be enormous. The elements of iCARE can significantly enhance the process of leaving the hospital and developing a chronic, independent condition to preserve health, a dignified standard of living, and effective interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration to improve treatment results.
Nurses are mandated to lead interprofessional teams on the front lines. As nurses, we form relationships with patients and their families and act as their champions during their hospitalization. Treatment can be transitioned from the hospital to the home or other rehab center by employing the components of the iCARE nursing model and successfully engaging with interprofessional teams. Since nurses spend the most time with patients and their families and provide direct care at the bedside, they can lead in managing interprofessional teams. The path of a patient’s results is influenced by nurses, who also play an essential function in transition and sickness maintenance.
References
Aagard, M., Papadopoulos, I., & Biles, J. (2018). Exploring compassion in US nurses: results from an international research study. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1), 5. https://doi/-org.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/10.3912/OJIN.Vol23No01PPT44
Burridge, L. H., Winch, S., Kay, M., & Henderson, A. (2017). Building compassion literacy: Enabling care in primary health care nursing. Collegian, 24(1), 85-91. https://doi/org.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.colegn.2015.09.004
Hopia, H., & Heikkilä, J. (2020). Nursing research priorities based on CINAHL database: A scoping review. Nursing Open, 7(2), 483-494. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.428
Levy, N. B. L. (2018). Legal Issues…Patient Advocacy and the Nursing Role. CINAHL Nursing Guide. Retrieved from https://chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nup&AN=T707493&site
Lim, D., & DeSteno, D. (2016). Suffering and compassion: The links among adverse life experiences, empathy, compassion, and prosocial behavior. Emotion, 16(2), 175. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000144
Pignatiello, G. A., Tsivitse, E., O’Brien, J., Kraus, N., & Hickman Jr, R. L. (2022). Decision fatigue among clinical nurses during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 31(7-8), pp. 869–877. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15939
VanBuskirk, S. (2005). The Value of Evidence-Based Practice in Nephrology Nursing. Nephrology Nursing Journal, 32(2), 134–147. Retrieved from http://chambelainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://ebscohost.com/login.aspx?Direct=tru&db=a9h&AN=16737860&site=eds-live&scope=site