Improvement of Healthcare Services

The advancement in healthcare provision has led to the development of different ways of providing quality healthcare services to patients (Homeyer et al., 2018). This has resulted from the need to improve how services are offered in the healthcare setting. According to Homeyer et al. (2018), one of the most anticipated methods of delivering effective healthcare services is through interprofessional collaboration, which involves the participation of professionals with different specializations to enhance the quality of service delivery to patients.
I had one such opportunity to collaborate on patient care in an interprofessional team meeting during my rotation with the charge nurse on the pediatric ward at JPCH. Dieticians, social workers, OT/PT clinical educators, clinical managers, and teachers attended the daily meeting, which was held at 9:30 a.m. During this meeting, the charge nurse starts by giving a run-down report on all the patients on the ward, giving a brief report on the diagnosis, current plan of care, and discharge planning. Different interprofessional team members then chip in with updates on each patient as their room numbers are called out. During this meeting, questions are asked, clarifications are made, and information is obtained on what each team is doing to provide support in every client case. I found this a very effective way to round on patient care while bringing team members up to date. I found it surprising, though, that there were no physicians or doctors in attendance. The charge nurse then seeks out each doctor associated with the patient to obtain an update on the patient’s condition or to exchange relevant information. This experience opened my eyes to team functioning in the provision of patient care, and I couldn’t help wondering what we could do to enhance this process to ensure its effectiveness and efficiency, to the benefit of not only the patients we care for but for the team as well.