Collaborative Nursing: Strategies for Effective Inter-Professional Teamwork

Running head: COLLABORATIVE NURSING
Collaborative nursing
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1COLLABORATIVE NURSING
Introduction:
Inter-professional team is a necessary requirement in today’s health care environment due
to the emphasis on improving quality of care and patients outcomes. Collaboration between
different levels of health care professionals helps in providing integrated care and fulfilling
expectation of patients in care delivery (Babiker et al., 2014). In response to the scenario of
developing a new health care professional team, this paper gives an insight into the methods and
strategies needed to develop an effective inter-professional team and facilitate effective
collaboration between the team.
Team Charter recommendation:
When a new inter-professional team is being launched, with professionals coming from
different field or specialization, it is necessary that certain rules and expectations are set for the
team. This is necessary to ensure that everyone is on the same page and work towards a common
goal. This is also essential for the smooth running of the team (Babiker et al., 2014). Such
ground rules and expectation for the inter-professional team needs to be developed by the leader
of the team. The Team Charter recommendation regarding methods for establishing ground rules
and expectations for the inter-professional team includes the following:
 Firstly, the team allocation process is important so that each member get to know
their role in health care delivery and the expectation from them regarding patient
safety.
 Secondly, for the efficiency of the inter-professional team, the leader can define
certain performance standards and key actions that is necessary for proper
collaboration between the team.

2COLLABORATIVE NURSING
 As quality of care and optimum health of patient is a priority, guidelines for
patient safety can be provided. The leader can instruct team members regarding
negotiation of task work so that timely care is provided.
 In addition, making the team aware about professional and role boundaries is also
important so that no conflict arise between the team (MacNaughton, Chreim &
Bourgeault, 2013). All this will ensure that each team member are aware about
grounds rule and expectation for good team work.
In a new inter-professional team, different types of members will be present. Some will
be highly experienced in their job and other will be newly placed staff in health care. When such
diverse team members are present, the common barrier in the initial phase will be the difference
in opinion and expectations of team members. Such difference in power, authority and opinion of
different team members can have an impact on the collaboration process and lack of negotiation
may lead to delayed delivery care or medical errors (Almost et al., 2016). This is common issue
in inter-professional team when the members are not accustomed to work collaboratively with a
shared goal. To resolve such kind of conflict, the strategy is to educate team members about the
purpose of making a inter-professional team. The team leader should inculcate in them the
philosophy of optimal care for patient and developing a commitment to work collaboratively. If
conflict arises even after this education, then the team leader should establish a forum where
members can report about conflict issue. The mechanism for negotiation and renegotiations can
be set in such forum (Brown et al., 2011). Such steps will also develop trust with the leadership
as team members will develop feeling of belongingness.
While launching a new multi-professional health care team, issues related to team
leadership may also arise. For example, when team leaders with positive leadership and