Group 4: The Alma-Ata provides a definition for Primary Health Care. Using the comprehensive definition, how do the principles ensure that the definition is achieved?

How the actions of an interprofessional team results in improved health outcomes

Introduction 

According to the World Health Organization an interprofessional collaborative group is a unit of health professionals from different divisiokns within the health sector that collaborate as one to collectively offer the highest quality of healthcare to patients. This alliance had been proven to demonstrate and intiate a higher value of healthcare as well as improve healthcare outcomes. This is evident when health professionals such as nurses, physiotherapists, dietitians and other health professionals come together to share each other’s knowledge and skills of their respective fields to collectively offer patients the most effective all round care and treatments.

How is this collaborative approach beneficial to patients?

Each day new medical advances are found. This has made it more and more tedious for health professionals to keep up with the times and remain competent in their field of work. With diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes, the collaborative approach has made it easier for new advances on these diseases to be shared amoungst the disciplines. The multidisciplinary approach lowers the risk of medical errors thus reassuring the safety of the patients. Interprofessional collaborative groups emphasize the entire recovery of the patient rather than solely targeting one affected area.

The positive and negative aspects of this collaborative approach 

Positive aspects

• Nurses are trained to be more euphemistic where as physicians are trained to be blunt and to the point. This collaborative approach bridges the gap in communication between the disciplines, which in the end benefits the patient in terms of them understanding and feeling comfortable in the hands of the health professionals. 
• Certain standards and polices are set with these collaborative groups to ensure that conflict does not affect the treatment of patients. 
• The collaborative approach also decrease the length of stay in hospital.
• With that said, this collaborative approach improves the standards of patient care which leads to improvement of healthcare of communities, thus  communities putting their trust in the healthcare they receive. 

Negative aspects 

• Without efficient communication within the group it could lead to confusion in terms of  who is in charge therefore negligence of patients occur.
• Poor communication can also lead to low expectations expected from the professionals which result in  patients not receiving the best possible treatment. 
• Superiority between the professionals especially from those at the top of the healthcare heirarchy could result in professionals being unapproachable which should not be the case as the whole idea of the collaborative group is to have a free and fare space to bridge the gap between the multiple disciplines all in efforts to give patients the best possible treatment. 

 Conclusion

Interprofessional collaborative groups is a new advanced technique that’s allows for boundaries between health professionals to be broken to improve the healthcare system and deliver the best possible treatment to the patients. With good communication and a firm hand leading the groups these collaborative groups can tackle any healthcare challenge put in front of them. 

References 

Patient safety and quality.(2002). Professional communication and team collaboration. retrieved March 8, 2018 from https://www.ncbi.nih.gov/books/NBK2637/
HRH Global resource center. Why is teamwork in healthcare important. Retrieved March 8, 2018 from https://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/HRH_Info_Teamwork