Multidisciplinary Teamwork in Patient Care - Essay Example

"Multidisciplinary Teamwork in Patient Care" is an engrossing example of a paper on care.
Multidisciplinary teamwork in patient care is one of the emerging trends in the delivery of healthcare services. It is one of the most popular approaches in improving the outcomes of patients in treatment. The multidisciplinary teamwork approach refers to a model of provision of holistic patient care by incorporating professionals from a wide range of specialties in medicine. The use of multidisciplinary teams enables professionals with a wide range of skills and technical know-how to use such skills at the patient’s advantage (Hall, 2005).  This helps to improve rates of success for treatment and augment preventive care. The multidisciplinary teams approach a move from the old tradition where a singular patient-doctor relationship was more common (Atwal and Caldwell, 2006). Physicians are increasingly becoming aware of the need to accommodate the contribution of other health professionals in providing patient care. Multidisciplinary teams bring together professionals from different backgrounds such as nurses, occupational therapists, and physical therapists, among others to work together collaboratively in ensuring the best outcomes for patients (Hoeman, 2008). Several healthcare facilities are implementing multidisciplinary teams approach, including clinics, and both private and public hospitals.

There is a great emphasis placed on multidisciplinary teams, especially in recent years because of the importance and significance of this approach in promoting good values in patient care and facilitating the recovery process (Hall, 2005). This approach is important because it enables health professionals to learn from one another and acquire more skills related to patient care. This enriches the knowledge and skills members of the multidisciplinary team. Patients will also benefit from this approach because they will learn better ways of preventing diseases in future (Atwal and Caldwell, 2006). The multidisciplinary teamwork approach is not an only treatment or curative measure, but also a preventive approach. The approach also ensures that medical practitioners achieve better results working as a team, than as individuals. The wide range of skills, experience, and knowledge within the group or team is likely to propel the team to great success than if the whole process was an individual effort.

Nursing plays a vital role in the multidisciplinary team. The nurses have the responsibility of attending to patients from time to time and administering medication. The nurses will continue to play this role within the team, albeit they will have to incorporate the views and opinions of other professionals in their work (Daly, Speedy, & Jackson, 2009). The nurses will specifically benefit from views of other professionals, who will advise the nurses appropriately on how to go about with medications of various patients.

Despite being a very effective and efficient method of providing healthcare, there are several obstacles and challenges that make it difficult to implement this approach. Main challenges of barriers to implementing multidisciplinary teams include differences in perceptions of teamwork among members of the team, different levels of experience and skills within the team may discourage some members from contributing, especially is they have the least experience and skills, and finally the dominance of medical power that can influence how members within a team interact (Atwal and Caldwell, 2006). The Board of Directors has the responsibility of forming formidable teams and providing them with the necessary resources to help the teams achieve their goals and objectives.