In the healthcare industry, the patient should always come first. When they are being troubled with an illness, injury, or any other hindrance to their health, it’s important for them to have the best care and experience as possible. In order to give a patient the proper care they deserve, it’s important for healthcare professionals to act as a team:
Team-based Care
The best way to ensure a positive experience for patients is by healthcare professionals acting as a team. This means having one common goal and supportive organizational frameworks. With effective team communication between doctors, nurses, pharmacists, specialists, and even technicians, a patient is able to receive the best care possible. For patients suffering from disease or chronic illness, effective teamwork by healthcare professionals will lead to better healthcare outcomes.
How to Work as a Team
By communicating effectively and working together for a patient’s health and care, there will ultimately be less repetitive testing needed and more focus on finding better treatment. Because of this, it’s important for healthcare professionals to understand exactly how to implement effective teamwork and team-based care. It all starts with defining the roles of each healthcare professional helping the patient and ensure the value of each team member. By recognizing each role and their value to the patient, they’re able to easily address hierarchy and reach what is best for the patient. It’s also important to share and define these with the patient.
Once roles are defined, communication must take priority. A system must be put in place for effective and efficient communication. Both written and verbal communication should have a process for how it is shared. This helps to ensure everyone is in the loop about updates on the patient. This will keep the patient’s care as organized as possible.
The Impact on Patient Care
Team-based completely changes the patient’s experience for the better. This type of care makes the patient feel safer, bond better with their caregivers, and perceive their care as higher quality. It’s been proven that patients are preferring team-based care and are ranking their experiences much higher. Although the patient’s experience is the most importantly, it has also been shown that working as a team has helped healthcare providers feel less stressed. This results in physicians and other providers feeling less burnout while also having a better and happier relationship with the patient.