Multiprofessional Healthcare Team Research Articles

Multiprofessional Cooperation and Accountability Pressures

This article examines how multiprofessional healthcare teams, working as a post-New Public Management (post-NPM) reform, respond to accountability pressure resulting from the implementation of NPM reforms. The team members use three strategies to respond to this pressure: responsibility avoiding that results in conflict; responsibility ignoring that results in parallel work and responsibility sharing that results in cooperation. Depending on how the professionals respond to different contextual factors, the choice of strategies can either foster or inhibit cooperation in multiprofessional teams. Achieving holistic patient care is threatened when accountability pressure increases for teams that have not yet developed their internal routines of cooperation.

Nurse Practitioner-Led Prostate Biopsy in the United Kingdom

As prostate cancer detection rates increase, multi-professional health care teams with nurse practitioners are adopting some roles that have predominantly been in the medical domain. This article reports the development of nurse practitioners undertaking prostate biopsies in the United Kingdom and presents an audit demonstrating the safety of nurse practitioners conducting this procedure.

The Difference Between Integration and Collaboration in Patient Care: Results From Key Informant Interviews Working in Multiprofessional Health Care Teams

Objectives Despite the growing interest in integrative health care, collaborative care, and interdisciplinary health care teams, there appears to be little consistency in terminology and clarity regarding the goal for these teams, other than “working together” for the good of the patients. The purpose of this study was to explore what the terms integration and collaboration mean for practitioners and other key informants working in multiprofessional health care teams, with a specific look at chiropractic and family physician teams in primary care settings. Methods Semistructured interviews were conducted with 16 key informants until saturation was obtained in the key emerging themes. All interviews were audiorecorded, and the transcripts were coded using qualitative content analysis. Results Most participants differentiated collaboration from integration. They generally described a model of professions working closely together (ie, collaborating) in the delivery of care but not subsumed into a single organizational framework (ie, integration). Our results suggest that integration requires collaboration as a precondition but collaboration does not require integration. Conclusions Collaboration and integration should not be used interchangeably. A critical starting point for any new interdisciplinary team is to articulate the goals of the model of care.

O papel do enfermeiro no contexto hospitalar: a visão de profissionais de saúde

This study attempts to analyze the conceptions surrounding nursing hospital work from the viewpoint of a multiprofessional health care team. The data for this qualitative study resulted from the application of semi-structured interviews, and Thematic Analysis was used for data treatment. Eight health care professionals from a multidisciplinary team in a philanthropic hospital in southern Brazil participated in the study. The results were presented based on four thematic units: relevance of the nurse role in the hospital context, the nursing team leader, the nursing connection element, and nursing action. The performance of the nurse, within the viewpoint of the health care team is revealed through relationships and is pointed to as a communication link among the health care team. The managerial function was that which was most specifically perceived among the research subjects, principally for relationships and interconnections that are established in a care system.

Stress‐resilience capacity of pediatric oncologists: A Swedish nationwide and population‐based study of motivation, emotional distress, and overall life satisfaction

Pediatric oncology is an area with heavy emotional distress. In balancing the daily challenges motivational factors might play a key role and could be examined by studying an individual's stress-resilience capacity. This first nationwide population-based study of 89 Swedish pediatric oncologists presents aspects of motivation related to experience and number of patients cared. In 2006, a cross-sectional mail survey with questionnaires dealing with motivation, coping resources, life satisfaction and emotional distress was performed. The response rate in the target group was 88%. The physicians wanted to be well informed (98%) and updated at national (93%) and international (90%) level. Established routines gave them security managing different diagnoses (97%). Optimal pediatric oncology included several colleagues (98%) and a multi-professional healthcare team (95%). Time pressure was a reality for every participant. Meeting seriously ill children was a way of being aware of essential issues of life (90%). More experienced pediatricians reported higher impact from motivational factors, past overall life satisfaction and a lower degree of somatization. The future overall life satisfaction was higher among physicians meeting more pediatric oncology patients. Between 8% and 45% of the variance in the stress-resilience capacity of the whole group was explained by low levels of depression, future overall life satisfaction and aspects of motivation. Pediatric oncologists continuously meet families in crisis. Knowledge of the physicians' stress-resilience capacity is expected to be useful in improving the physician-patient relationship, retaining experienced physicians and recruiting new specialists in this medical field.

A identidade do agente comunitário de saúde: uma abordagem fenomenológica

The structure of Brazil's National Health System (SUS) is being firmed up through programs adding a new element to its multi-professional healthcare teams: Community Healthcare Agents. This study examines psycho-social factors that are significant for the construction of this identity, from the standpoint of these Community Healthcare Agents, using the hermeneutic phenomenology of Paul Ricoeur as its reference methodology. The subjects of this survey were seven Community Healthcare Agents who were asked during interviews (with informed consent and after approval by the Research Ethics Committee) to: 'Tell me about your experience as Community Healthcare Agent'. The analysis of their replies indicated the following topics: previous experience; capacity-building for the job; bonding; building up expertise; gratifying experience; feelings of power(lessness); communications; daily work routines, personal growth; criticisms of the institution; user-agent experiences; and insertion into the social reality. The overall analysis disclosed the phenomenon through the convergence and divergence of the grouping of these topics, viewed from the standpoint of these Community Healthcare Agents and the psycho-social aspects constructing their identity.

An inter-professional approach to children’s nursing education

Nurses caring for children and young people do not practice in isolation but work as members of a multi-professional healthcare team. The Inter-professional programme delivered at Canterbury Christ Church University offers pathways in midwifery, adult nursing, child nursing, medical imaging, occupational therapy, social work and operating department practice. Benefits include the focus on children and their families from the outset, and learning to nurse using a multi-professional approach. Challenges in implementing the programme include maintaining professional identity, changing patterns of teaching and learning, supporting clinical staff in adapting to early student placement and the multiprofessional focus.

Talking about Spirituality in Health Care Practice - A Resource for the Multi-professional Health Care TeamTalking about Spirituality in Health Care Practice - A Resource for the Multi-professional Health Care Team

I needed a rest to get past the ponderous title but it was worth the effort. This book, based largely on Gillian White’s PhD thesis into how people learn about spirituality, offers many rich insights.

Talking about Spirituality in Health Care Practice – A Resource for the Multi-professional Health Care Team Gillian White Talking about Spirituality in Health Care Practice – A Resource for the Multi-professional Health Care Team Jessica Kingsley Publishers 175pp £18.99 1 84310 305 2 1843103052

Talking about Spirituality in Health Care Practice – A Resource for the Multi-professional Health Care Team Gillian White Talking about Spirituality in Health Care Practice – A Resource for the Multi-professional Health Care Team Jessica Kingsley Publishers 175pp £18.99 1 84310 305 2 1843103052

Discursive patterns in multiprofessional healthcare teams

The aim of this paper is to report a study exploring how members of multiprofessional healthcare teams talk about their team. Specifically, the team members' talk was analysed to explore the discursive patterns that emerged and their functions. Over recent decades there has been an increasing demand in Western countries to change care organizations and to coordinate resources and professional competencies to meet the needs of patients/service users better. Because society promotes this kind of work, it may be valuable to explore the self-presentations of a multiprofessional healthcare team. A discourse analysis was carried out on existing empirical data from focus group interviews with a member-identified category sample comprising 32 healthcare professionals in six authentic multiprofessional teams in south-east Sweden. The analysis focused on the participants' discursive constructions of multiprofessional teamwork, on the way they talked about their group, and, in particular, on their use of the pronouns we, they and I. The constructions of 'we' by multiprofessional healthcare teams showed discursive patterns that are here referred to as knowledge synergy and trusting support, which included factors such as cross-learning and personal chemistry. The pronoun we was also used as a flexible resource to manage expertise, power and leadership within the teams, and it might also function to ease the pressure for consensus. These discursive patterns provided powerful rhetorical resources for team members, both to affirm their choice of membership and to claim superiority in relations with the surrounding community (the others) by linking to a societal discourse that promotes collaboration.

Documenting diabetes care: the diabetes nurse specialists' perspective.

Diabetes Nurse Specialists (DNSs) are often the hub of the communications network for the entire diabetes multiprofessional health care team, patients and their families. Frequently they liaise between primary and secondary care and have a key role in the provision of a 'seamless service'. To work effectively and efficiently they need a foolproof system of documentation and communication. The aim of the study was to investigate the means by which DNSs document patient care in order to provide baseline information about ongoing record-keeping practices. The study comprised a cross-sectional survey in which data were obtained by questionnaire. All DNSs in the UK registered with the British Diabetic Association were invited to participate in the study. A 70.3% response rate was achieved (n = 545). The results indicated that manual profession-specific records were used by 65.3% of DNSs, 21.1% used shared/integrated records, 12.8% used computerized records and only 0.7% made use of patient-held records. Whilst almost all DNSs felt that a good record-keeping system was essential in providing 'seamless care' to patients, not all felt their system was efficient. Of those using a computerized system 65.7% rated it as efficient, compared with only 28.1% of those using a profession-specific system and 26.1% of those using a manual shared system. A high percentage of DNSs (65.9%) felt that the provision of 'seamless care' was hindered by communication problems with members of other professional groups. The findings from this study indicate that computers alone cannot bridge the gap between primary and secondary care, but 'seamless care' may become more of a reality with computerized record-keeping systems and participation by all members of the multidisciplinary team.

Evaluation of inter-professional liaison in foot ulceration case

This paper describes a case of diabetic neuropathic foot ulceration and briefly outlines the management principles employed by a multiprofessional health-care team. The subsequent discussion does not focus on the clinical care itself, but on some of the successes and failures of the associated interprofessional working relationships and communication systems established to facilitate.

Macmillan nurses: fighting cancer with more than medicine.

The aim of this Learning Unit is to develop nurses' understanding of the role and function of Macmillan nurses so that they can identify for whom, and in what circumstances, referral to a Macmillan nurse is appropriate.

Social bioethics and transdisciplinary healthcare: an alternative proposal for palliative care


 
 
 This study describes the steps for the construction of a communication environment for a multiprofessional healthcare team acting in a healthcare service for incurable patients. Beginning with discussions on ethical dilemmas concerning the healthcare team’s approach to death during home care and based on a human sciences theoretical framework – particularly social anthropology – a professional protocol was drawn up where the major interlocutors are the patient, his family, and care providers. Palliative care was critically discussed from a bioethical standpoint, as a fundamental element for social bioethics.