Part Of Interdisciplinary Teams Research Articles

Exploring patient and caregiver perceptions of the meaning of the patient partner role: a qualitative study

BackgroundThe re-conceptualization of patients’ and caregivers’ roles in research from study participants to co-researchers (“patient partners”) has led to growing pains within and outside the research community, such as how to effectively engage patients in research and as part of interdisciplinary teams. To support the growth of more successful research partnerships by developing a shared understanding of how patient partners conceptualize and contribute to their role, this study aimed to explore patient partners’ motivations for engagement and understanding of their role.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews with participants (n = 13) of an online survey of activities and impacts of patient engagement in Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research projects. Eligibility criteria included being a patient partner that indicated interest in interview participation upon survey completion, the ability to read/write in English and provide informed consent. Data were analyzed thematically using an inductive, codebook thematic analysis.ResultsIlluminating the lived/living patient and caregiver experience was central to how most patient partners conceptualized the role in terms of its definition, purpose, value, and responsibilities. Participants also identified four additional categories of motivations for becoming a patient partner and contributions that patient partners make to research that build upon and are in addition to sharing their lived/living experiences. Lastly, participants highlighted important connotations of the term patient partner, including temporal and context-specific considerations for the term “patient” and what “partner” may imply about the nature of the research relationship.ConclusionsAt the onset of partnership, academic researchers and patient partners must create the space necessary to discuss and understand each other’s underlying motivations for partnering and their perspectives on the purpose, value, and responsibilities of the patient partner role. These early conversations should help unearth what research partners hope to get out of and feel that they are able to contribute to engaging, and in such contribute to the development of reciprocal relationships that work towards shared and valued goals.Trial registration Not applicable.

The Pharmacist as Part of the Primary Care Team During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Pharmacists' roles and training have evolved to prepare pharmacists to provide clinical patient care services as part of interdisciplinary teams in primary care settings. Especially now, amidst a global health crisis such as COVID-19, patients may become more aware of their health status and be exposed to increased medical information in the media. Additionally, some patients may have delayed routine care, which may result in exacerbations of chronic disease states. Pharmacists can help alleviate the burden on primary care providers by serving as a drug information resource for patients and staff while providing patient education on management of chronic disease states.

Human dimensions in undergraduate fisheries and wildlife degree programs in United States Universities

ABSTRACT Training undergraduate fisheries and wildlife students in human dimensions (HD) can prepare them to be part of interdisciplinary teams and apply human dimensions in their careers. We assessed the state of undergraduate HD coursework in the United States for the first time since 2001. The previous survey-based study found approximately 40% of responding universities with fisheries and wildlife degrees offered a stand-alone HD course. We analyzed degree requirements on websites of 37 members of the National Association of University Fisheries and Wildlife Programs. Two-thirds offer a stand-alone HD course; others offer at least one HD-type course in a single social science or humanities discipline. Of 244 HD-type classes, public affairs courses were most common, followed by economics. While we find growth in HD coursework, there are very few HD concentrations or certificates and no majors or minors within fisheries and wildlife units.

Clinical psychologists in primary mental health care in Norway - what to do?

Abstract Background The past 20 years Norwegian health authorities have put significant effort into increasing the number of clinical psychologists in primary health care. By 2020, all Norwegian municipalities are required by law to have clinical psychologists available. In 2018, only about half of the 422 municipalities had fulfilled this requirement, and the number of vacant positions is growing. The purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness of clinical psychologists in a primary care setting as perceived from primary mental health care leaders/employees and those who educate clinical psychologists at the universities. Methods We combined the use of open-ended questions in a survey (N = 456) among leaders and employees of primary mental health services in Norway, with data from semi-structured focus group and individual interviews (N = 15) with academic staff at the four universities in Norway that provides education for clinical psychologists. Results The discussion on utilisation and usefulness of clinical psychologists in Norwegian primary care often condensates into weighing time spent on a never-ending demand for individual therapy against time spent on health promotion, prevention and system level work. Traditionally, Norwegian psychologists have received education mostly focusing on treatment methodology and individual therapy most suitable for the specialist services. The curricula are now changing towards more health promotion/prevention in primary care, but still lacks focus on system level approaches like collaboration with and guidance of other professions - which are the qualities asked for from those who hire clinical psychologists in primary mental health care. Conclusions Interdisciplinary collaboration with a wide spectre of professionals and thereby ’working with and through others’ in the health and welfare services, was suggested to be the most efficient way of utilising psychological clinical competence. Key messages The Norwegian clinical psychologists’ education is becoming more primary care friendly. Psychologists in primary care must be part of interdisciplinary teams where they can work with and trough others.

Review of the Role of the Pharmacist in Reducing Hospital Readmissions

Hospital readmissions remain a public health concern despite progress in reducing and preventing its occurrence. Among strategies that have been implemented to reduce readmission most involves medication management. Our objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions involving pharmacists to reduce hospital readmissions. PubMed and Google Scholar were searched for primary literature from January 1990 to July 2016 with search terms such as “hospital readmission,” and “Pharmacist,” or “Pharmacy,” or “medications.” Studies with an abstract in English which highlighted a pharmacist involvement based on the type of intervention, country of origin, type of study, and findings were summarized. The outcomes of these interventions to reduce hospital readmissions were mixed. Of the 29 studies, 16 (55%) showed a statistically significant reduction in readmissions ranging from 3.3% to 30%. Most of the interventions focused mainly on patient education postdischarge (8) or in addition to medication reconciliation predischarge (9). There were no studies from Africa or Asia but mainly from the United States (72%). Although multiple factors contribute to hospital readmission, this review highlights the important role pharmacists can play singularly and as part of interdisciplinary teams. Most effective interventions often involved medication review and patient education postdischarge.

Telepractice, Telehealth, and Telemedicine: Acquiring Knowledge From Other Disciplines

Telepractice for speech-language pathology and audiology operates within a complex and dynamic environment that is beset with many influencers: state and federal regulations, state professional licensure boards, reimbursement policies, standards and guidelines, and the interests of powerful financial drivers. While much that is written about telepractice does not reference telemedicine-based standards and guidelines, the latter can provide valuable information. Knowledge of the aspirational practices of other healthcare professions will benefit speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and audiologists and is essential for practitioners who work as part of interdisciplinary teams. The aspirational practices of other professions can also be drawn upon when devising telepractice curricula for university programs.

Social Work and Interprofessional Education in Health Care: A Call for Continued Leadership

ABSTRACTA report from the Interprofessional Education Collaborative and another from the Institute of Medicine cite working as part of interdisciplinary teams as a core proficiency area for improving health care. This article discusses the core competencies of interprofessional education and the essential role for social workers as leaders and facilitators of this practice. Educators will learn how to help students discover the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for successful interprofessional work. Specifically, this article has the following objectives:Discuss essential elements of effective interprofessional practice;Present exemplars of interprofessional education involving social work;Identify the roles for social work in leadership, education, and practice in interprofessional education.

Interprofessional Integrative Medicine Training for Preventive Medicine Residents.

Integrative medicine training was incorporated into the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Preventive Medicine residency at the Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences Newark Campus as a collaboration between the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the School of Health Related Professions. Beginning in 2012, an interdisciplinary faculty team organized an Integrative Medicine program in a Preventive Medicine residency that leveraged existing resources across Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. The overarching aim of the programs was to introduce residents and faculty to the scope and practice of integrative medicine in the surrounding Newark community and explore evidence-based research on integrative medicine. The faculty team tapped into an interprofessional network of healthcare providers to organize rotations for the preventive medicine residents that reflected the unique nature of integrative medicine in the greater Newark area. Residents provided direct care as part of interdisciplinary teams at clinical affiliates and shadowed health professionals from diverse disciplines as they filled different roles in providing patient care. The residents also participated in research projects. A combination of formal and informal programs on integrative medicine topics was offered to residents and faculty. The Integrative Medicine program, which ran from 2013 through 2014, was successful in exposing residents and faculty to the unique nature of integrative medicine across professions in the community served by Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences.

Improving Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality in the 21st Century—Competencies Required of Future Medical Laboratory Science Practitioners

Healthcare quality has yet to meet the aims of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) with respect to safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, efficiency, timeliness and equity. No professional curricula adequately prepare future healthcare practitioners-including medical laboratory science professionals-with all competencies necessary to deliver quality healthcare. Practicing evidence-based medicine, focusing on quality improvement, using information technology, delivering patient-centered care and working as part of interdisciplinary teams are identified by the IOM as the five core competencies that every healthcare practitioner needs to effectively provide healthcare. Medical laboratory science educators need to incorporate patient safety concepts into the curricula and include assignments to develop the IOM competencies in order to adequately prepare future practitioners to effectively practice medical laboratory science in the healthcare system of the 21st century.

Improving Care Transitions: Current Practice and Future Opportunities for Pharmacists

During the past decade, patient safety issues during care transitions have gained greater attention at both the local and national level. Readmission rates to U.S. hospitals are high, often because of poor care transitions. Serious adverse drug events (ADEs) caused by an incomplete understanding of changes in complex drug regimens can be an important factor contributing to readmission rates. This paper describes the roles and responsibilities of pharmacists in ensuring optimal outcomes from drug therapy during care transitions. Barriers to effective care transitions, including inadequate communication, poor care coordination, and the lack of one clinician ultimately responsible for these transitions, are discussed. This paper also identifies specific patient populations at high risk of ADEs during care transitions. Several national initiatives and newer care transition models are discussed, including multi- and interdisciplinary programs with pharmacists as key members. Among their potential roles, pharmacists should participate on medical rounds where available, perform medication reconciliation and admission drug histories, apply their knowledge of drug therapy to anticipate and resolve problems during transitions, communicate changes in drug regimens between providers and care settings, assess the appropriateness and patient understanding of drug regimens, promote adherence, and assess health literacy. In addition, this paper identifies barriers and ongoing challenges limiting greater involvement of pharmacists from different practice settings during care transitions. Professional degree programs and residency training programs should increase their emphasis on pharmacists' roles, especially as part of interdisciplinary teams, in improving patient safety during care transitions in diverse practice settings. This paper also recommends that Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) standards include specific language regarding the exposure of students to issues regarding care transitions and that students have several opportunities to practice the skills needed for effective care transitions. Moreover, reimbursement mechanisms that permit greater pharmacist involvement in providing medication assistance to patients going through care transitions should be explored. Although health information technology offers the potential for safer care transitions, pharmacists' use of information technology must be integrated into the national initiatives for pharmacists to be effectively involved in care transitions. This paper concludes with a discussion about the importance of recognizing and addressing health literacy issues to promote patient empowerment during and after care transitions.

The Impact of Leadership Effectiveness and Team Processes on Team Performance in Construction

The ability of construction professionals to work effectively as part of interdisciplinary teams is vital as the delivery of projects moves away from the traditional design-bid-build approach. This study of 27 construction professionals participating in a leadership training institute used a competitive Request for Qualifications exercise to examine whether self-assessed leadership characteristics and satisfaction with team processes were predictive of team performance as assessed by a panel of industry experts. The individual participants' leadership characteristics and satisfaction with team processes were measured using standardized, validated assessment instruments. The results of the study show that team members' satisfaction with processes such as communications, trust, problem-solving, common goals, and effective utilization of team resources were important to team effectiveness, while leadership characteristics of the individual team members were not. These findings indicate that assembling project teams composed of people who have demonstrated the ability to work well with others may be more effective than assembling a group of individuals who all have strong leadership skills. The study has implications for construction professionals participating in interdisciplinary teams because it shows that the development of effective team processes and team member satisfaction with those processes are important for team performance.

A New Biology for the 21st Century

In mid-September, the National Research Council (NRC) released the results of a year-long study titled: A New Biology for the 21st Century: Ensuring the United States Leads the Coming Biology Revolution. As one of the members of the committee, I believe this report signals the critical importance of biological research writ large, and the fundamental nature of ecological research in particular, in ways that will reverberate throughout the entire Ecological Society of America (ESA), and indeed, society in general. The report lays out several substantial challenges that the world will certainly face over the coming decades: feeding a growing human population, slowing and reversing ecosystem degradation, providing sustainable energy alternatives to fossil fuels, and customizing healthcare for individuals. It argues that these challenges are of such magnitude that they play an equal role in justifying a need for increased research along with the more traditional interest in satisfying our own curiosity about how biological and ecological systems work. The report also identifies the investments in fundamental research infrastructure, observational capabilities, and information technologies that will be required, as well as the biological foundation that needs to be improved: recognizing and using the outcome of long evolutionary histories of adaptability, understanding the mechanisms that govern the relationship between genotypes and phenotypes, and understanding the dynamics of complicated networks in biological systems. Several features of this report and its recommendations should be of considerable interest to ecologists, as a number of the challenges identified are inherently ecological in nature. The problem of feeding a human population expected to reach 9 billion without continuing to contribute to ecosystem degradation is as much an ecological issue of providing sustainable services as it is an applied biological problem in creating, deploying, and managing new, more adaptable crops. The development of sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels through biology is as much a problem in understanding the forces that control land-use change and the ecological consequences of those changes as it is a matter of creating better enzyme packages for decomposing cellulose. And the reversal of environmental degradation and concomitant restoration of ecosystems have been major concerns of ecologists for decades, both in responding to local stresses and the impacts of climate change. The importance of these issues is obvious. What should be equally obvious, and what the report points out, is that the potential solutions are interdisciplinary – within the various biological subdisciplines as well as across traditional scientific disciplines. In this respect, ecologists have a critical role to play. I see our role as having at least three different aspects. The first involves research. As a community, we have a long history of productive research collaborations with other biological subdisciplines, as well as with atmospheric scientists, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, and all the other research communities with environmental applications and interests. But the timeframes of the challenges outlined in the NRC report will require an even greater dedication of our leading researchers to the rapid development of interdisciplinary teams. The second revolves around education. Many ESA members already have substantial experience as part of interdisciplinary teams, but for most of us, that experience has been hard-won, and is the result of long years of learning to communicate effectively with scientists from other disciplines, training, traditions, and scientific backgrounds. The New Biology will demand of us that we seek more creative ways to prepare our students for the inherently interdisciplinary tasks that lie ahead. The third aspect centers on communication. The issues outlined in the NRC report are extensive, difficult, long-lasting, and demand solutions, not just diagnosis. We must be equally skilled in communicating the results of our science, including both its successes and its limitations, to political and public audiences who will ultimately make the decisions about possible paths forward. Meeting these challenges will require our full creativity as researchers, as teachers, and as communicators. The agenda laid out in the NRC report is daunting, but necessary if we are to make the vital contributions to a sustainable future that we are capable of making.

Biomed Roundup

Discussing the convergence of medical and information technologies, AAMI President Mary Logan told biomeds at a recent Virginia Biomedical Association (VBA) conference in Williamsburg that “if your role isn't changing, you need to ask why. You have an opportunity to frame and manage your future.”She noted, however, that “you could be left in the dust if you don't position yourself to be ready for new and expanded roles.”“Concerns about electrical safety have been replaced with concerns about network security, interoperability, and reliability,” Logan said. “Looking out five to 10 years, your hospital is going to be one big connected system of equipment.”Logan challenged attendees by asking them if they are adequately prepared for the changes that are afoot. According to Logan, some of the skills that are critical—in addition to technical skills—in this evolving environment include:Logan also emphasized the importance of demonstrating your value to hospital administration, or the “C-Suite.”“The C-Suite's biggest challenges are the same as yours—money, patient safety, and patient satisfaction,” said Logan. But “they think in sound bites. Think about the dashboard on your car. Amazing detailed engineering goes into the design of that dashboard. But what's shown on the dashboard is just the top-line message: Do you have enough gas, are you driving too fast, do you need to service your car? They need you to give them the dashboard information on medical equipment. They love top-line data and getting one-page summary reports that give them the data.”If you're feeling overwhelmed, “this is where AAMI comes into play,” Logan said. “We have a responsibility to help you prepare for this future and to help your hospitals understand your value.” She said AAMI can provide:Finally, Logan provided a glimpse of “what success looks like.”Specifically, she identified: a collaborative partnership between biomedical engineering and clinicians; a collaborative partnership between biomed and IT; a biomedical engineering department that is seen by the C-Suite as a reliable group of technicians who solve big problems; and biomed as part of interdisciplinary teams that plan for equipment purchases, produce a reliable inventory of medical devices, and coordinate the risk management function for medical devices.“AAMI is committed to helping you achieve that success,” said Logan. “We care about your future and want to give you the tools you need to get there.”

Avaliação sobre a participação de cirurgiões-dentistas em equipes de assistência ao paciente

The presence of patient assistance team becomes necessary in a hospital environment, especially for more debilitated patients hospitalized in Intensive Care Units (ICUs). However, not all health professionals act in ICUs. Dental surgeons, for example, are not found in this environment – which is contradictory, considering that oral health may be determinant to establish the patient’s health status in the ICU. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate, through interviews carried out with nursing professionals from 12 hospitals in Belem (northern Brazil), the participation of these professionals in multi/interdisciplinary teams in Intensive Care Units and verify whether the presence of dental surgeons is needed. The assessment revealed that 98% of the interviewers are part of interdisciplinary teams, and 86% of them consider necessary the presence of dental surgeons. It was therefore concluded that to combine the knowledge of a dentistry professional to a biomedical staff is very important for the patient.

A Rural Community-Based Interdisciplinary Curriculum: A Social Work Perspective

ABSTRACT Although social workers are frequently part of interdisciplinary teams in health care and community settings, interdisciplinary training is often lacking in social work education (Berg-Weger & Schneider, 1998). This article describes a study of the effects of an interdisciplinary community-based experiential course preparing new health care professionals for work as part of interdisciplinary teams. The interdisciplinary curriculum was established for a summer course taught in 2006 by faculty from five disciplines: social work, nutrition, medicine, nursing, and public health. The course, Quality Improvement in Rural Healthcare, which focused on health literacy in people with a diagnosis of diabetes that live in northeast Tennessee, provided a model environment for learning interdisciplinary teamwork. Evaluation of this course found that social work students displayed a statistically significant increase in positive attitude toward interdisciplinary teamwork. Course strengths, weaknesses, obstacles, and opportunities for curriculum improvement are elaborated.