Essay Grade

Running head: INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION
Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Sarai Artires
Capella University
February 2019
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Interdisciplinary Collaboration
The concept of collaboration in the healthcare industry is purely grounded at providing
holistic and all-inclusive service care to the many people who seek health care from health
institutions. The value of healthcare is derived from its ability to cater for the many existing and
emerging healthcare issues while at the same time ensuring care, efficiency, and accountability
by those caregivers involved. As such, each discipline must strive to form collaboration with
other disciplines as a way of ensuring that patients are addressed efficiently, effectively, and
professionally, while at the same time ensure the industry does not suffer from a lack of intuitive
collaboration. The fact that health is versatile in provision, its maintenance, and its sustenance
demands that healthcare providers form a network that allows individual disciplines to function
together (Susilaningsih, Mediani & Kurniawan, 2018). Therefore, collaboration in healthcare is
essential in ensuring the provision of care is done professionally, and that individual disciplines
(within the healthcare system) know and understand their role in such a way that ensures
efficiency while at the same time it is cost-effective.
There are specific characteristics that define an effective interdisciplinary collaboration
within any field, and they include:
Communication
For any collaboration to happen, there must be a clear line of communication that allows
individuals within these individual disciplines to collaborate with each other. Communication
forms an essential part of the collaboration effort, as each discipline is unique and different in its
way. The lack of communication allows for confusion that may result in a conflict of interest
between these groups. As such, each of these disciplines must be able to communicate its
interests, problems, challenges, and needs to the other groups involved to create order. The
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process of collaboration is heavily reliant on effective communication that allows every team to
effect and play its role as it is meant to.
Leadership and Management
For collaboration to happen, each interdisciplinary must have the right leadership that
guides its members to incorporate other disciplines within its function. The value of
collaboration is to ease the function of each discipline. This can only be affected through
leadership that ensures that every team member understands and values their role in ensuring
effectiveness. Leadership, in turn, ensures management in performance as a way of ensuring that
there are no gaps left by individual members of each group. As a result, each team can play its
role effectively without interfering with the others (Schmitt et al., 2011).
Appropriate Skill Mix
Collaboration is about a mixture of skills that allows for a collective improved function
between the collaborating groups. Collaboration cannot be done between individuals or
disciplines that possess the same kind of skills set. The versatility of skills within a group or
disciplines accords the collaboration the value and importance that allows for each team to find a
need to collaborate. More so, these skills must be appropriate to allow the collaboration to have
importance and significance in the role it is meant to fulfill.
Communication is the backbone upon which interdisciplinary collaboration functions
upon. Therefore, individual teams must strive to create a clear line of communication that allows
for an effective movement of information from one point to another with ease. The failure to
have a clear line of communication makes collaboration extremely difficult, this because teams
fail to find the balance needed to ensure effective collaboration and as a result, the intention of
the collaboration is lost (Susilaningsih, Mediani & Kurniawan, 2018).
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Usually, each discipline has its philosophy that allows it to fulfill its goals And Ensure its
function. These philosophies may differ per individual group, hence when diverse groups come
together; these philosophies may collide. As a result, this may bring about differences that may
hinder the collaboration effort that was meant to allow these groups are disrupted. It is usually
difficult to enjoin individual philosophies into a cohesive function as each discipline is hinged on
ensuring it attains its goals. This may hinder the collaboration effort and its intended function
and goal (Schmitt et al., 2011).
Usually collaboration is about sharing the available resources, however, this usually very
difficult. This especially when one discipline has a lot of resources while another one has little
resources. This creates a problem in effective collaboration as individual disciplines find it
difficult to share fully and usually resentment develops leading to a failure in communication. As
a result, the collaboration effort is blinded and affected by the indifference between these groups.
Therefore, individual groups must have a balance of resources that allows individuals within
each group to find a reason to share whatever resources they have at their disposal (Petri, 2010).
The best way to overcome barriers to effective interdisciplinary collaboration is to have a
realistic plan that provides the group with the needed guideline to interact with these other
disciplines. Such a plan provides the group with the needed guideline that allows for the effective
implementation of individual goals. It also defines the terms of collaboration in such a manner
that ensures each group understands their role and plays such a role effectively.
The function of collaboration is based on effective communication that allows each team
to protect itself while at the same time ensures the fulfillment of the goal. Therefore, if the
communication channels are open, then the barriers to communication can be easily be avoided
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since each discipline can know its role and fulfills it (Susilaningsih, Mediani & Kurniawan,
2018).
Within every society, there are individual factors that affect, and influence health choices
adopted within such a society. These factors play a crucial role in defining how healthcare
workers implement their care plan, especially regarding emerging medical problems. These
factors include cultural values, traditional beliefs, social biases and stereotypes, and economic
factors. These factors influence the attitude individuals within the society adopt in term of health
and their health-conscious behavior. as a result, they play a very important role in determining
how implementation of healthcare initiatives is achieved as it affects even the way healthcare
workers choose to implement their goals.
Collaboration is purely based on the improvement of value within the workplace. As a
result, the outlined goals for each group are achieved easily, faster, and with an improved value.
When collaboration is done effectively, healthcare functions such as treatment, admission, or
even interventions are done better, faster, and less costly. It is therefore important that when
collaboration is done, each group understands its role, the value of such collaboration and is
ready to fulfill their objective. This benefits the entire system and ensures improved function.
Collaboration is usually done to allow each group to maximize on its resources by
reducing the workload previously born by each group. More so, collaboration allows each group
to maximize its function in such a manner that removes the previous hindrances that affected
each of these groups.
Through collaboration, existing hindrances are removed, as each team is not alone in
fulfilling its set roles and objectives. As a result, there is an improved way of doing things, which
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enables each team to function fluidly. Collaboration is very crucial in creating efficacy and
effectiveness within the workplace (Schmitt et al., 2011).
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References
Petri, L. (2010). Concept Analysis of Interdisciplinary Collaboration. Nursing Forum, 45, 73-82.
Schmitt, M., Blue, A., Aschenbrener, C., & Viggiano, T. (2011). Core Competencies for
Interprofessional Collaborative Practice: Reforming Health Care by Transforming Health
Professionals’ Education. Academic Medicine: Journal of the Association of American
Medical Colleges. 86. 1351.
Susilaningsih, F., Mediani, H., & Kurniawan, T. (2018). Development of Team Cohesiveness
Measurement Instruments in Interprofessional Collaborative Practice in Health Care.
Jurnal Keperawatan Padjadjaran, 6.

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