Hospital Settings Interprofessional Collaboration As A...

Those who are admitted to hospitals nowadays either through the emergency department or elective admission usually have multiple and complex health conditions and classically require more than one health professional to address these needs. In today’s hospital settings interprofessional collaboration is being promoted as a holistic means of providing patient centred care and plays an extremely important role in healthcare. It is said to improve the delivery of healthcare by reducing morbidity and mortality by decreasing wait times, improving chronic disease management and promoting patient safety (World Health Organisation, 2010). Team work at this level is a very involved process in which a wide variety of health care workers, from†¦show more content†¦While on this placement I attended allied health meetings and got a firsthand introduction to how interprofessional collaboration works inside a psychiatric unit. The patient was a middle aged man who was diagnosed in his early twenties with what is now called bipolar. He is a known marijuana user and a binge drinker however he has been clean for around 1 year; then in his mid-thirties he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He had come in through the emergency department after an unsuccessful suicide attempt and had been on the unit for nearly 5 months; he was due for discharge by the end of the week. An interprofessional allied health team was formed to help smooth the transition back to real life. They all met in the large conference which had a combination of couches and office chairs as well as yoga/exercise balls. Everybody sat in a kind of circle the main door free of any obstacles The interprofessional team consisted of †¢ 2 x psychiatric doctors their role was to be directly involved in his treatment and care plan management as well as providing therapeutic counselling in the first few weeks after discharge †¢ a psychiatric nurse, †¢ outpatient psychologist whose role was to provide ongoing counselling for both the patient and his family so that they can deal with difficult emotions, mental health issues, stress, as well as drug and alcohol issues should they arrive. †¢ social worker her role was to arranged for daily