Several Issues Can Affect The Dynamics Within The Healthcare Setting
Consider an area in health care in which you work or are interested in working. Examine the dynamics of the interprofessional team (physicians, nurses, physical therapists, social workers, health care administrators, etc.) in that setting. In a 1,000-1,250-word paper, explain how communication and collaborative strategies can be applied to ensure respectful interactions and to prevent or address potential issues among the team in that health care setting. Include the following:
Describe the health care setting and summarize the various individuals or teams typically working together in that setting.
Discuss what types of issues may occur and how these affect dynamics within the setting for health care workers and for patients and their families.
Discuss attributes of a healthy culture that help individuals or groups perform as a team.
Describe qualities of effective communication. Discuss how communication styles can be applied to facilitate productive communication.
Chapter 8 of your textbook discusses the dynamics of successful interprofessional health care teams. What is a boundary-spanning activity you could incorporate as a leader that would support a collaborative culture and enhance communication? Consider the interprofessional team you would be working with.
Explain how employee satisfaction impacts patient care. Describe qualities of professional communication that contribute to acceptable interactions with patients, their families, and other health care professionals.
Explain what your role is as a health care leader in helping to facilitate collaboration and clear communication among an interprofessional team, as well as with patients and their families.
Several Issues Can Affect The Dynamics Within The Healthcare Setting
Description of Healthcare Setting
The healthcare setting in which I am interested in working is a hospital, which comprises such professionals as physicians, nurses, healthcare administrators, and physical therapists. The physicians comprise doctors in various roles, including registrars, interns, senior consultants, residents, and student doctors. Nursing professionals will include nurse unit managers, nurse practitioners, associate nurse unit managers, specialist nurses, enrolled nurses, and registered nurses. Physical therapists will include geriatrics, pediatrics, orthopedics, sport, and women’s health. Healthcare administrators, allied health professionals, and hospital support staff will also be working in this healthcare setting. As a result, it can be expected that interprofessional teams will be formed to work collaboratively to help the hospital achieve its goals.
Types of Issues
Several issues can affect the dynamics within the healthcare setting and for patients and their families. These issues often tend to affect the ability of interprofessional collaboration. According to Rawlinson et al. (2021), these issues include unclear roles, poor communication, and lack of training. Unclear roles could cause redundancies and confusion among the professionals, which causes inefficiencies and poor patient outcomes. Unclear roles could also cause medical errors. Communication is often the primary ingredient in teamwork and collaboration. Poor communication will frustrate the team’s efforts and slow down the team’s progress. Lack of training also causes teams to malfunction, especially since lack of training could result in unclear roles and poor interpersonal communication. Training in soft skills is considered critical for teamwork success. The effects on patients and their families are manifested through patient outcomes, including safety and overall wellbeing. Medical errors may cause the death of patients and grief to their families.
Attributes of a Healthy Culture
A healthy culture that helps groups perform as a team comprises several attributes. First, effective communication allows managers and employees to reach out to each other, give directives, obtain feedback, and foster collaboration among team members. Second, a culture of collaboration means that the professionals work together as a team and thrive on teamwork. Collaboration means that the group performance is greater than the sum of the individuals since group members can help each other. Third, a culture’s critical defining features are strong purpose and core values. In other words, a culture can be described as a way of life, including norms and values. In organizational culture, the collection of values, practices, and expectations tend to inform the behaviors and actions of all corporate members. Lastly, a healthy culture also ensures the well-being of all organizational members.
Qualities of Effective Communication
The qualities of effective communication can be summarized using the 7Cs of effective communication. These qualities are clarity, conciseness, concreteness, correctness, coherence, completeness, and courteousness (Wroblewski, 2019). Clear communication reduces misunderstanding and misinterpretation, or what can be termed ‘muddying up’ the message. Complete communication means that all information is relayed. Conciseness makes it possible to get the messages across quickly by avoiding wordiness. Facts, examples, and figures support concreteness. Correctness means mistakes are avoided, while courteousness means respectfulness of communication. Lastly, coherence means messages or information is presented in a logical sequence.
Communication styles can be applied to facilitate productive communication. This can be achieved by deploying the best communication style. For example, the assertive communication style can be deemed the most effective since it comprises open communication that is not marred by overbearing. As a result, assertive communicators tend to express themselves and their ideas and feelings while also considering the interests and nee...