Posted: June 9th, 2015

Interprofessional Collaboration Paper

Collaboration, Communication, and Teambuilding
Organized flow, logical progression of ideas, and clarity in thought are essential. Please use headings to
separate content.
Grading Rubric Criteria Points
Introduction paragraph (one paragraph). There must be a thesis statement at the end of the
paragraph that tells the reader the purpose of paper and what will be discussed.
/1
Define collaboration and differentiate between the various forms of collaboration
(multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and interprofessional). Establish
the significance of collaboration in today’s healthcare environment.
/4
Discuss essential characteristics of collaboration (clinical and interpersonal competence,
common purpose, trust, mutual respect, value of diversity, humor [Hamric et al.]).
Perform an informal self-assessment of collaborative strengths and opportunities for
development. Rate your collaborative skills on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being extremely
weak and 10 demonstrating excellence. Support your assessment with examples.
Commit to a minimum of two improvement goals based on the Core Competencies of
Intraprofessional Collaborative Practice (IPEC, 2011).
/5
Identify barriers to collaboration between providers and/or patient. In other words, what
gets in the way of providers working together? Provide an example of a barrier to
collaboration encountered in your practice. How did you address the barrier? If you had
it to do over again, what would you do differently?
/4
Describe a personal experience where interprofessional collaboration was used in a group
to improve patient care, to resolve an organizational concern, or a policy issue. Was team
effectiveness strong? If so, what promoted effectiveness? Based on your leadership
strengths, emotional intelligence, and collaborative skills, what would you have done
differently to further teambuilding?
/5
Conclusions: Summarize the essential points of paper (one paragraph). /1
Total /20
The complexity of today’s healthcare environment requires the expertise of individuals from different disciplines. In order to meet the IOM’s mandate for healthcare transformation, healthcare professionals must pool knowledge and work together. Nurses with advanced nursing degrees are expected to facilitate collaborative team functioning and to breakdown barriers of interprofessional silos. Advanced communication skills are the basis of high performing teams. This unit offers students an opportunity to synthesize essential evidence and theory related to building effective teams and to apply new skills in practice.
Begin this unit by watching this interesting video depicting teamwork and cooperation
in Chimpanzees…

Funny isn’t it!! ….. Now ponder whether the same behavior is innate in humans? If so, how do you as a leader leverage the inherent goodness found in people?
Begin by reading your text –

Hanson, C. M., & Carter, M. (2015). Collaboration. In Hamric, Hanson, Tracey, and O’Grady (Eds),
Advanced practice nursing: An integrative approach (pp. 299-327). – Very nice chapter on
Collaboration
Next, review the core competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Care. These competencies were developed in 2011 by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, American Dental Education Association, Association of American Medical Colleges, and Association of Schools of Public.

Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Care
Four key competency domains for interprofessional practice were identified:

Domain 1: Values/Ethics for Interprofessional Practice

Domain 2: Roles/Responsibilities

Domain 3: Interprofessional Communication

Domain 4: Teams and Teamwork

Familiarize yourself with the competencies in each of the domains.
Okay, let’s have a little fun here. It is thought that humans have an innate sense of morality…. inherently recognizing good and expecting fairness…. A desire for equity extends to chimpanzees also…. as you will see below. Ponder the meaning of this inborn sense of morality to aspiring leaders?

—Keynote—-
Collaboration

Collaboration, simply put, is the interaction between two or more people to solve problems. The term is frequently associated with partnership and teamwork. Collaboration requires intrapersonal and clinical competence as pre-requisites for collegial relations. Hamric, Hanson, Tracy, and O’Grady’s textbook (Hanson and Carter, 2014) propose collaboration to be “the most sophisticated and complicated interaction that occurs in practice” (p. 300), yet crucial to the well-being of patients and the goal to transform healthcare. How effective are you as a collaborator? Is this a skill that you need to develop?

Healthcare is fraught with with errors leading to enormous human and financial costs. Healthcare is fragmented. Providers fail to confer with each other- repeating tests, missing the mark with patient hand-offs, and working from different patient careplans. Providers have been educated in silos viewing healthcare through the lens of their discipline. Few healthcare providers were educated to be a team member; yet, evidence indicates that collaboration and teamwork improves coordination and communication.

There are various forms of collaboration (multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and most recently interprofessional). Hamric et al. provides a comprehensive overview of these different forms of collaboration. Take time to read this overview and learn how to use these words correctly.
Negotiating Conflict

Conflict is inevitable; the healthcare setting is noted as one of the highest conflictual environments because of the high stress, high emotions, scarce resources, excessive regulation, workplace diversity, and multiple stakeholder demands. Reactions to conflict can span a continuum of passive to aggressive behavior. Borkowski (2009) identifies five conflict-handling modes: competition, avoidance, compromise, accommodation, and collaboration. Conflict avoidance is a common response to a conflictual situation that can lead to an explosive reaction over time. Collaboration involves highly assertive and cooperative behaviors and reflects a win-win approach to conflict. An environment that recognizes conflict as inherent and normal is fertile for creative innovation.
Group dynamics
Communication failure has been identified as the leading root cause of sentinel events over the past 10 years (Joint Commission). Transformation depends on the commitment and ownership of workers of workplace issues and patient outcomes. The Joint Commission and Institute of Medicine recognizes high functioning teams as foundational to creating a safe culture. Do you possess the leadership skills to create a shared vision, promote communication, manage conflict, negotiate win-win solutions? Before exploring how to build effective teams, let’s begin with differentiating between a group and team. Is there a difference?

The answer is “yes”. Groups are much broader than teams and can be formal or informal. There are many work groups in organizations. Work groups can be powerful in both positive and negative ways. Group development typically advances through stages:
1. Forming – cordial relations as members are trying to identify the group purpose and individual roles

2. Storming- trying to find group identity; jockeying for roles; characterized by high emotion

3. Norming- cohesion and structure occurs; values and roles accepted; less conflict

4. Performing- energy high and focused on task; works through problems effectively

5. Adjourning- dissolution of the group membership
Teambuilding

Okay… now you should have a pretty good feel for how groups work, so let’s talk about teams.
As mentioned earlier, teams are different than groups. Teams are distinguished by highly defined tasks, roles, and commitment. Teams are characterized by small numbers (preferably and odd number like 5 or 7), have specific goals, accountability, interdependence, and collaboration. Advanced nursing practice graduates commonly lead or participate as a member in project teams. Team performance and reliability increase given the following recipe:

1. Establish Urgency and Direction

2. Member selection based on skills and skill potential, not personality

3. Establish clear rules of behavior

4. Set and seize upon a few immediate performance-oriented goals

5. Challenge the group regularly with fresh facts and information

6. Spend lots of time getting together. Cohesive groups have higher productivity.

7. Exploit the power of positive feedback, recognition, and reward – ultimately, the satisfaction in the team’s performance becomes the cherished award.

Four primary barriers can reduce the effectiveness of teamwork: lack of management support, lack of resources, lack of leadership, and lack of training. Successful teams are characterized by the following: clear goals, defined roles, open and clear communication, effective decision-making, balanced participation, valued diversity, managed conflict (members feel safe to openly discuss ideas), positive atmosphere, cooperative relationships, and participative leadership. The magic number of five members seems to be the ideal for establishing cohesiveness among members. As the size of the group increases, social loafing becomes a factor as members begin to hold back thinking others will pick up the slack. Social loafing can be minimized by holding members accountable and recognizing individuals for the task. Group conformity is an important consideration for group facilitators. People conform in varying degrees creating a mass mentality, which can lead to decreased innovation and faulty decision-making. Group thinking can overshadow critical thinking.

It is important for advanced nursing practice graduates to be aware of what is known about groups and to use the principles of teambuilding as best as the situation allows. In a perfect world, we would strategically select all team members and follow all of the team principles. In the real world, many, if not most, times we inherent our team members forcing us to rely on our interpersonal skills and sensitivity to the others to build successful teams. For instance, you may not feel the Director of Pharmacy is easy to work with; however, if you are working to improve a medication problem, you most likely will need the support of the this key stakeholder… so finding ways to relate and communicate is not just nice, it is essential for quality and safety. The journey is about you… don’t lose your direction by focusing on others. Your responsibility is to bring facilitate team building… not to argue for your limitations.

Albert Einstein observed, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them”. Therefore, conformity may feel more comfortable, but can significantly decrease innovative thinking and group effectiveness. Group dynamics are complex; effective leaders are sensitive to the complexities and skillfully facilitate groups to maximize performance.