Patients’ Stories of Interprofessional Whole-Person Care

Abstract

Objectives: Interprofessional whole-person care has been depicted as being able to enhance patient health outcomes, increase health care provider satisfaction with care delivery, lower health care spending and decrease wait times for receiving care. Limited research has been conducted into exploring patients’ experiences of being recipients of this type of care. The objective of this oral presentation is to disseminate findings of a Master of Nursing study through patients’ stories of experience receiving care on aunit where inter professional care is practiced.Methods: Three participants underwent a two step data collection process: a one hour semi-structured interview and a 30 minute symbolic image artistic exercise, as adapted from Schwind’s Narrative Reflective Process. Participants were invited to describe how they experienced receivingcare from an interprofessional team and whether or not they believed whole-person care was delivered to them. Collected data are being analyzed using Clandinin and Connelly’s Narrative Inquiry approach of three dimensionalspace, temporality, sociality and place.Results: The emerging results suggest that participants express satisfaction with the care they received from the interprofessional team on their unit. Their stories indicate that strong interprofessional team-work can contribute to patient satisfaction in care received. For these teams to be successful, from the patients’ point of view, there needs to be: better communication between care providers, greater involvement of the patient in decision making, proper identification of who comprises the teams, andconsistency in team composition.Conclusion: By acknowledging experiences and feelings ofpatients who have received care from an interprofessional team, there is potential to increase sustainability of these teams. The data generated through this study can potentially help health care providers, who are members of interprofessional teams, to deliver more effective, comprehensive whole-personcare within health care institutions.