Nursing, as a caring profession with many specialities meeting peculiar needs, thrives on the ability to make urgent decisions centred on patients’ health needs and requirements at any point in time.
Collaboration between teams and professionals is critical to ensure that individual peculiarities are promptly treated and met.
American Association of Critical-Care Nurses states that collaboration among nurses and staff ensures more efficient, effective patient care and a more supportive environment where team members can develop their practice.
As technology advances, medicine becomes broader and more sophisticated, hence the need for more specialities and increased growth for previously existing ones.
A situation previously individually managed becomes best managed by professionals with more expertise and experience in that area.
Collaboration in nursing is a crucial partnership between two key parties: the skilled and compassionate nurse and the patient who requires care and support. Through effective communication, trust-building, and shared decision-making, this collaborative relationship can lead to improved health outcomes, increased patient satisfaction, and a stronger overall healthcare system:
- The Patient: They are often seen as the king of healthcare as they are the most important reason for everyone working in the hospital or any other healthcare unit. Collaboration with them makes their care and experience the best. It involves carrying them along in conversations relating to their health matters. For example, seeking their opinions, discussing their care plan and applauding their improvements.
- The Nurse: As the principal carer for the patient, a nurse is saddled with the responsibility of ensuring patient satisfaction and optimal well-being at every point in time. Working with the team, which includes other nurses (seniors, junior or specialists), physicians, pharmacists, physiotherapists, etc., helps the nurse become more efficient and effective in tending to other patients with similar needs. An observation while tending to patient needs in an area with little specialized knowledge and experience is shared among the team for better opinions, feedback and actions when necessary. This also makes communication clearer and creates team bonding, which is often the gap between excellent or poor team communication.
The act of collaboration in nursing is a sound culture that should be continually embraced.
Significantly challenging tasks are reduced through the feeling of involvement that comes with collaboration.
The best patient care outcome is achieved when they are actively involved, and the nurse effectively utilizes available resources, such as recommendations, tools, and technologies from other specialties.
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