Impact of Professional Identity on Patient Safety during Interprofessional Team Work

This paper discusses the impact of professional identity on patient safety during interprofessional team work, focusing on communication and leadership skills. It also provides implications for future practice.

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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Part a)
Introduction:
As the health care system is struggling with issues like shortage of health workers and
increase in disease burden, policy makers are introducing new strategies to bolster the global
health workforce (Sherwood & Barnsteiner, 2017). World Health Organization (2010) reports
about the Framework for Action on Inter-professional Education and Collaborative Practice that
provides strategies to successfully integrate collaborative team work within local health care
system. Inter-professional collaboration is one of the vital strategies within health care setting
that ensures fulfilment of various health care reforms and objectives. Effective team work and
inter-professional collaboration is linked to patient safety and improved patient outcome such as
reduction in medical errors, adverse drug reaction and decrease in mortality rates (Bosch and
Mansell, 2015). However, individual professional identities like specific skill and value plays a
role in influencing patient safety outcomes and inter-professional collaboration process. The
paper provides a detailed account into the impact of professional identity on patient safety by
focusing on the area of communication and leadership skill.
Impact of professional identity on patient safety during interprofessional team work:
Impact of profession specific communication on inter-professional team working and patient
safety:
Professional identity in health care is developed through the process of socialization and
individual staff’s professional identity determines how well inter-professional practice can be
executed in health care setting (Langendyk et al., 2015). A strong professional identity is
developed by the identification of core values of a chosen profession (Joynes, 2018). In response

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to patient safety and inter-professional collaboration goals, communication is regarded as a vital
factor influencing patient outcome. Effective team collaboration is regarded as an approach to
improve patient care. Communication is regarded as a key competency for effective
collaboration (Farrell, Payne & Heye 2015). Individual professional’s ability to converse with
diverse group in health care setting facilitates adaption of complementary roles within a team,
sharing responsibility on time, problem solving and engaging in quick decision making for the
safety of patient. With good communication skills, any gap in awareness of individual team
member’s capability is reduced and the interprofessional team is able to successfully utilize
individual professional capability to promote patient safety (Busari, Moll & Duits, 2017). The
NMC guidelines for standards of practice required by nurses also encourages working in
partnership with people to provide effective care and to work collaboratively by communicating
effectively and sharing work, skills and knowledge wherever appropriate. The guidelines
proposed use of several communication method to better understand the health needs of patient
and enhance patient safety (Nursing and Midwifery Council (2018). Hence, it can be said that
clear communication between nurses and physicians is the key to effective interprofessional
collaboration and assurance of quality care.
The experience of individual professionals like doctors and nurses can also show
professional specific communication during team work affects patient safety and how inability to
achieve profession specific communication act as barrier to patient safety too. A study by
Steihaug et al. (2016) investigating about the perception of health care providers regarding
challenges to interprofessional team work revealed that achieving profession specific
communication was difficult for them because of difference in professional culture and
knowledge base. The study revealed both positive and negative aspect of communication within

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an interprofessional context. Physiotherapist and occupational therapist revealed that limited
communication with nursing colleagues affected their rehabilitation work. Poor communication
with interprofessional team led to time consuming discussions and delay in making care plan
with patients. Hence, both interprofessional relationship as well as patient safety indicators is
affected if professional specific communication process is not accomplished by health care
professionals.
As difference in power and reluctance to start conversation has been identified as few
barriers affecting profession specific communication, there is a need to resolve this issue to
promote patient safety (Silvaggi, Nabhani-Gebara & Reeves, 2017). The contact theory is found
relevant to resolve the issue. It defines the appropriate condition under which inter-groups can
contact to reduce prejudice between majority and minority groups. The theory states that positive
effect of intergroup contact can occur only in four conditions which include intergroup
cooperation, support of authorities, equal group status within the situation and common goals
(Joyce, 2017). Hence, to facilitate profession specific communication within inter-professional
team, there is a need to modify the work culture and implement process that supports
implementing inter-professional collaboration effectively.
There are numerous evidences which show how poor inter-professional team
communication has an impact on quality outcomes of patient. Childress (2016) reports
miscommunication as the major reason behind medical errors and cites suboptimal
communication skills as the reason behind poor team communication and rise in negative patient
event. It cannot be denied that some of the health care setting may require unique communication
skills specific to the field to reduce patient injuries. For example, in an oncology setting team
members need to have strong communication to effectively share needs of patient with multiple

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co-morbidities, dangerous treatment and intricate diagnostic procedures. As oncology patients
might be going for surgery and radiation, multiple hand-offs can increase the chance of
miscommunication. Hence, to achieve positive patient outcome through profession specific team
communication, there is a need to support nurses and doctors by providing communication tools
like preoperative briefings, hand over check list and SBAR tool. Oak et al. (2015) suggest that
use of surgical checklist has reduced surgical complication in preoperative setting. Nursing
staff’s satisfaction with their career can also be increased through better communication and
introduction of supportive tools for better inter-professional team collaboration and
communication.
Role of leadership on patient safety and interpofessional collaboration:
Apart from communication, leadership has also been identified as a skill to master for
successful team collaboration and promoting patient safety in health care setting. Sonnino (2016)
argues that as the health care system is transforming, there is a need for collaborative health care
leadership to resolve unprecedented challenges and deliver high quality care. Adaptive
leadership is required so that doctors, nurses and other caregivers can be engaged in shared
ownership of patient-care experience. For registered nurse, insufficient inter-professional
collaboration is a barrier to delivery of high quality care. To create appropriate collaborative
environment, nurses need to act as a leader and implement practices to deliver care to patient in a
competent way. Smith et al. (2018) explains that shared leadership is also a norm today and it
enables each team member to step-in and out as a team leader. The positive impact of
incorporating shared leadership concept in a health care setting is that it creates the mechanism
for empowering health care professionals and achieving patient safety. Busari, Moll and Duits
(2017) supports that when appropriate environment is created for regular interprofessional

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collaboration, information sharing and quality of care is improved. Leadership plays a role in
standardization of procedures, maintenance of knowledge and collaboration based on
professional respect. Hence, such form of leadership should be embraced to promote patient
safety and effective team work.
Although effective leadership is found to have positive impact on inter-professional
collaboration and patient safety goals, however many negative results have also emerged when
traditional leadership has been implemented in health care organization. Busari, Moll and Duits
(2017) gives the evidence that hostile attitude id leaders have lead to decreased motivation level
and high rate of work absenteeism. The ultimate consequence of this is suboptimal patient care
and higher risk of errors. This also indicates that poor leadership increase conflict within the
team and lead to stress. Presence of such issues may lead to wrong dosage, medication errors and
patient injuries. Hence, medication errors and psychosocial factors like stress are directly related
to each other and lack of a leader’s vision to motivate nurses and other health care professionals
in the team may contribute to high rate of negative patient event (Zaree et al., 2017). Therefore,
appropriate programs need to be implemented so that shared leadership is embraced and each
members get the opportunity to share their perspective and take the best decision for patient
safety. This in turn would contribute to effective patient care too. This is in relevance with the
concept of transformational learning theory as it states that deep constructive learning is needed
for learners to make meanings of their life (Taylor, 2017). Hence, when nurse get the opportunity
to critically reflect on patient issues and share this to team members, ideas for service
improvement can emerge. This would also enable health care professionals to realize practice
goals as well as personal career goals.
Conclusion:

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To conclude, it can be summarized that communication competency and leadership
competency are two important attributes of professional identity that can help to achieve patient
safety with a focus on interprofessional collaboration. The overall discussion suggests that both
are important areas which can help physicians, nurses and other care professionals to overcome
the barrier faced during interprofessional practice and develop a safety climate for patient.
Achieving leadership skills is necessary to develop professional identity and overcome the
barriers that is found during interaction with other professionals. The positive impact of
leadership is that it transforms the health care environment and facilitates building of a safety
climate for health and well-being of patients. The review of the impact of professional identity
on patient safety suggest that newly placed health care professionals today need to welcome
innovative ways of learning and adapt those skills that help in the achievement of positive patient
outcome.
Part b)
Implication for future practice:
By researching for the impact of professional identity on patient safety and investigating
about the two areas of communication and leadership during inter-professional communication, I
have acquired many new ideas about ways to effectively work with inter-professional team. This
knowledge will inform my future practice and enable me to prepare for all those skills that might
help me to effectively share information with the multi-professional team. For example, during
completing the module task, I learnt that effective communication skill is an important
competency to engage in successful interprofessional collaboration. However, as Foronda,
MacWilliams and McArthur (2016) have revealed that inappropriate communication style and

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reluctance to share information with the team delay care delivery and increase conflict within the
team, I plan to take lessons on communication competency to improve my future professional
practice. I will focus on learning about new communication styles that would help me to
effectively collaborate with diverse team members. This would help me to fulfil my professional
duties as a nurse and improve the workplace environment too. Current research pays emphasis
on optimizing patient outcomes and increasing communication and collaboration among health
care professionals. By focussing on continous professional development in the area of
communication, I will be able to improve patient outcome and job satisfaction level.
By researching on positive and negative aspects of communication, I learnt about
challenges for nurse while communicating complex information to the interprofessional and
benefit of several tools to improve information sharing process. I aim to learn more about the
tools like SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation) and other vital tool
that might be useful during practice in real setting. The ultimate goal is to reduce the incidence of
patient injuries and adverse patient event. Knowledge about surgical safety checklist would be
vital to prevent ambiguity of information during information sharing and avoid those medical
errors that occur due to miscommunication. Evidence shows that when surgical safety checklist
has been implemented in care setting, it has resulted in reducing morbidity and mortality rate and
preventing complications (Pugel et al., 2015). Hence, use of this tool would help me to
strengthen attitude towards team work and communication process. The lesson on impact of
leadership shows that shared leadership is needed so that all team members are empowered to
present their ideas and engage in decision making for patient safety. This information motivates
me to learn more about ways in which shared leadership can be executed in busy hospital setting.
This will help me to effectively transition from a student nurse to a professional registered nurse.

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I will focus on maintaining professional respect and adapting values that would help to
effectively engage in interprofessional collaboration. More training in this area will support me
to confidently overcome all challenges confronted during professional practice.
To conclude, the paper gives the understanding that specific professional identity specific
to the field is developed through the process of socialization. To achieve the goal of patient
safety and successful interprofessional collaboration, improving the communication skills and
leadership style is considered paramount to overcome barriers found during the process. The
overview of positive and negative aspects of the topic suggest that adapting innovative tools and
strategies relevant to the needs of health care team today is necessary to achieve the vision of
delivering high quality and safe patient care.

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