Impact of Lack of Teamwork on Interprofessional Collaboration

Introduction

This paper aims to discuss the lack of teamwork as a human factor that impacts interprofessional collaboration and service user safety. The assignment focuses on exploring how lack of teamwork impacts patient care and patient safety, leads to increased medical errors and readmission rate, and reduces mutual respect while creating an uncomfortable work environment.

Treating patients is the healthcare system's responsibility; this is a clinical medical activity carried out by diverse groups of healthcare experts. However, the healthcare environment's complexity necessitates even greater coordination and integration between various sections of the healthcare system. A healthcare system that helps health care providers while also minimizing patient injuries and medical errors can be developed using human factors such as teamwork, employee attitudes and culture (Jones & Jones, 2011). Additionally, there is a growing demand for healthcare providers to improve communication, teamwork, and resilience to achieve better outcomes. According to Orchard et al. (2018) the need for quality patient care necessitates cooperation among healthcare providers. In healthcare writing, the term "interprofessional collaboration" is often used to refer to when multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds work together with families, patients, and communities to deliver the highest quality of care. So it is critical to grasp the idea and put it into action inside the health care system (Rose, 2011). Therefore, while interprofessional collaboration is when a team of health professionals and a patient work together in a collaborative, coordinated, and participatory manner to reach shared decision-making on social and health issues, teamwork entails people working together despite their differences (Orchard et al., 2018). Lack of teamwork makes patients to receive substandard treatment and are unsatisfied and mostly lead to hospital readmission.

Teamwork and Interprofessional Collaboration

Interprofessional collaboration promotes patient outcomes and access to health care (Franklin et al., 2015). Health care providers who operate in teams are more productive and happier in their jobs than their solo counterparts. Altmiller (2018) proposed "interprofessionality" to describe the emergence of a unified practice among professionals from many fields. To give an integrated and unified response to the client, experts need to think ofand develop new ways of practicing. In contrast to multidisciplinarity, which refers to a process in which different disciplines work independently and simultaneously on the same project, interprofessional collaboration refers to a lower level of collaboration on the spectrum (Collaboration, 2021). When it comes to health care workers, the term "collaboration" conveys the notion of sharing and indicates group action aimed towards the same goal in a spirit of trust and harmony (Collaboration, 2021). Interprofessional collaboration, also referred to as cooperation between professionals, refers to a negotiated agreement that values the contributions of various healthcare professionals to promote patient care. This type of collaboration is most effective when team members have good communication and respect for each other's differing opinions. Interprofessional collaboration in healthcare has been demonstrated to been found in studies to help lower patient mortality rates, eliminate unnecessary patient adverse drug reactions, and optimize prescription dosages (Yam et al., 2016). Furthermore, researchers discovered that by improving the interprofessional collaboration between physicians and nurses, a hospital was able to reduce its fall rate by half, reduce average stay by 0.6 days, increase annualized bed turn by twenty percent and increase discharges before noon by twenty percent (Goh et al., 2020).

Teamwork is the process of working collaboratively with a group of people in order to achieve a goal. On the other hand, Aa team is a collection of professionals who work together to achieve a common objective and are held jointly accountable for it (Aaberg et al., 2019). For teams to succeed, they must be formed when the work is challenging, members are interested in the outcome, and efficient use of resources is required. This is where teams come in. For collaboration to occur, successful teamwork is needed across organizational borders. This is only possible when individuals have a shared work product, are interdependent on one another, share responsibility for delivering results, and are committed to a common strategy. Collaboration is enabled by teamwork because it establishes the conditions for productive work to take place. According to Bruce Tuckman's idea, teams go through five stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Jones, 2019; Moeller et al., 2019). Based on the idea, forming refers to team meeting and learning about the challenges and opportunities, and then agrees on goals and begins to tackle the tasks. Storming refers to group sorting itself and gaining each other’’s ' trust. (Verspuy & Van Bogaert, 2018). On the other hand, norming refers to resolved disagreements and creating greater intimacy and co-operation. Performing refers to members’ focus on achieving common goals and after this is accomplished, task is adjourned. (Verspuy & Van Bogaert, 2018). To have a successful partnership, individuals on the team must be able to work together well. Interprofessional collaboration includes coordination, responsibility, cooperation, accountability, communication, assertiveness, autonomy, and mutual respect and trust. This is the collaboration that forms an interprofessional team to collaborate on common goals to improve patient outcomes and experiences (Verspuy & Van Bogaert, 2018).

Poor Patient Care and Patient Safety

Lack of teamwork reduces interprofessional collaboration, leading to poor patient care and patient safety (Gilles et al., 2020). Researchers discovered that integrating services across several health providers is vital in better treating people and communities. To obtain the most significant potential outcomes in patient health care and well-being, health care providers must collaborate. This means that if collaboration is not accessible, the team will not strive toward common goals, and patients may suffer. As a result, a lack of teamwork suggests that the model stages are not met, which indicates a lack of collaboration, jeopardizing patient safety and care. Tuckman's methodology is used to improve team performance. Tuckman's idea focuses on how a team approaches a task from the beginning of its formation to the completion of the project. Tuckman later added a fifth step to cover the completion of a task: Adjourning and Transforming (Moeller et al., 2019). Tuckman's concept is important because it acknowledges that teams do not begin as fully formed and functioning entities. When it comes to forming teams, it's important to remember that there are clearly defined stages that teams go through before they become cohesive and task-focused team.

Furthermore, according to Kutob and Alhothali (2020), cooperation has become a significant health intervention for various reasons. Clinical treatment is growing more specialized and sophisticated, for starters, requiring medical professionals to attempt intricate health services and swiftly acquire new procedures. Due to the increased aging population and rise in chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, medical professionals are compelled to embrace a multidisciplinary approach to health treatment. As a result, when collaboration is lacking, the rate at which patients are treated is low, negatively impacting their health and outcome. For example, if a patient comes to the emergency department (A & E) complaining of chest problems and the doctor checks them out, but the cardiologist fails to arrive on time, the doctor cannot continue with treatment, limiting the patient's capacity to obtain healthcare. At the same time, if the nursing and surgical teams fail to collaborate in the ICU, patient health and security are jeopardized. Working together creates a more comprehensive, holistic view of the patient, increasing their health and safety, despite each member having a distinct perspective and valuable insights about the patient.

Increased Medical Error and Readmission Rate

Lack of teamwork harms interprofessional collaboration leading to increased medical error and readmission rates. In the healthcare business, medical errors (MEs) are among the most common causes of iatrogenic harmful effects. Medication errors, hospital-acquired infections, anesthetic errors, missing or delayed diagnosis, inadequate follow-up after treatment, needless delays in therapy, failure to act on test results, and insufficient monitoring following an operation are all examples of common medical errors. According to Uitvlugt et al. (2021), drug and medical errors account for 16 percent of readmissions, with underprescribing, incorrect dosage, and poor monitoring being the most common. Incorrect dosages and are mostly due to poor communication between professionals. Poor communication between physicians can lead to misunderstandings about prescriptions and miscommunication of follow-up instructions, resulting in poor outcomes and readmissions, as well as the risk of damage to the patient (Yam et al., 2016). Medical error and a lack of communication, according to Johns Hopkins, is the third most significant cause of death in the United States (Tesfaye et al., 2019).

Furthermore, a lack of cooperation is linked to low nurse engagement in workplace. Nurse engagement refers to nurses' commitment to and satisfaction with their jobs. Nursing engagement directly relates to patient safety, quality, and satisfaction (Tesfaye et al., 2019). Nursing participation is a crucial aspect in determining the quality of care and avoiding problems. When medical practitioners do not work together as a team, they are less engaged, which leads to a higher readmission rate. In most cases emotional commitment-engagement the nurses determine how patient receive care and reduce patient readmission rate.

According to Yam et al. (2016), it is easy to see how mishaps can occur when various doctors prescribe multiple prescriptions and multiple nurses administer those medications. When there is a lack of teamwork, however, there is an increase in inaccuracy, leading to various errors and hospital readmission. Lack of collaboration, on the other hand, leads to higher readmission rates. Moreover, misdiagnosis is a persistent problem in patient care that can be combated through interprofessional collaboration. A misdiagnosis can result in unneeded suffering, mortality, medical issues, unwarranted worry, and anxiety. Also, lack of interprofessional collaborationit result in patient time wastage, loss of lost time, money, and medical procedures, in addition to physical pain. However, when nurses collaborate with other healthcare professions, this issue is addressed. According to teamwork theories, effective cooperation in the workplace occurs when individuals prosper when they use and develop their sStrengths (Key-Roberts, 2014). When individual strengths and teamwork are combined to pursue meaningful goals, performance begins to flow effortlessly, and the team achieves meaningful and fulfilling results. As a result, a lack of collaboration and errors in nursing might be attributed to a lack of teamwork. Patients are treated effectively the first time by increased teamwork.

Reduced Mutual Respect and Uncomfortable Work Environment

Lack of teamwork harms mutual respect and the work environment, thus negatively impacting interprofessional collaboration and service user safety. Long hours and high-stress circumstances are all possible problems in nursing and healthcare employment. To avoid burnout, it is critical for professionals in this industry to maintain a high degree of job satisfaction (Souza et al., 2016). Likewise, professionals who are happier in their work deliver better care, which leads to increased job satisfaction. Nurses may be more satisfied with their everyday work obligations if they have access to well-coordinated teams with clear lines of communication. It has been discovered that forming effective teams leads to a happier workforce, which benefits both coworkers and patients (Castner et al., 2013). Simultaneously, interprofessional teamwork improve patient surgery procedures thus improving patient security. For example, Verspuy & Van Bogaert (2018) reveal that the collaboration improves improved surgical start times and avoided delays that resultsed in 700 hours of lost time in theduring the previous four years- since 2015(Verspuy & Van Bogaert, 2018). As a result of the absence of teamwork, collaboration is limited, resulting in treatment delays and reduced communication among medical practitioners.

Increase Waiting Time

A considerable portion of healthcare is often a waiting game. Individuals wait for physicians, while doctors wait for test findings from radiology or for consultations from other doctors. In most cases, communication delay frustrates patients, which squander time and allows conditions to deteriorate. Interprofessional collaboration, once again, fills in the gaps. It connects members of the care team and automates alerts. In general, a care team sends the appropriate information to the appropriate individuals in a timely way through many channels such as encrypted chat, voice, or video, thus reducing waiting period (.Collaboration, 2021). For example, when doctors, nurses, and oncologists work together, they can quickly treat a patient, resulting in a better patient outcome. On the other hand, professionals add to their knowledge by learning more about how to deal with patients, resulting in professional growth. Therefore, a lack of teamwork not only endangers patients but also limits professional development.

Conclusion

This clinical medical activity is carried out by many healthcare specialists as part of the healthcare system's role. Even more coordination and integration across different parts of the healthcare system are required because of the complexity of the healthcare environment. Working in interprofessional teams and collaborating improves patient outcomes and access to healthcare. Teamwork is crucial in health care if professionals are to improve coordination. Collaboration among healthcare experts improves the quality of care for patients. In some clinical condition like diabetesIn some cases, the lack of coordination is astounding, and it has harmed professionals as well as patients in terms of patient hospital readmission and healthcare professionals having to wait for long to perform simple treatment. Lack of teamwork inhibits collaboration between professionals, resulting in subpar patient care and safety. Lack of collaboration leads to a higher risk of medical errors, hurts mutual respect and the workplace atmosphere thus impacting safety of patient.

Completing this assignment gives me information about extensive and practical application of teamwork and interprofessional collaboration. A similar experience was gained while learning interprofessional education where learners from various professions learn and collaborate to enable effective collaboration and enhance health outcomes. Therefore, my interprofessional education modules and completing this assignment will allow me to support teamwork and work in teams to promote patient safety and minimize the impact of miscommunication and misunderstandings of roles and responsibilities.

Working interprofessionally is critical since it will help me enhance patient experience, prevent medication errors, and deliver better patient outcomes which have been my objective of in joining the medical field. My fascination has always been in protecting and assisting patients in society. Moreover, I always believe that nursing is all about working respectfully and diligently in a high pressured surrounding to deliver the best. Similarly, interprofessional working is critical, especially in improving my career. Also, the collaboration will enable me to work in a friendly environment which is essential to my satisfaction.

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