Working together: A collaborative approach to patient care
| 31 May, 2022 | Abbie nicholson |
Whether practicing in a hospital, clinic, or primary care office, healthcare professionals work side by side across departments to deliver high-quality patient care. This means that as a patient progresses through the health system, they could experience multiple professionals from varying specialisms. So, what does this mean for patients?
In this blog, we explore the advantages of collaborative approaches in healthcare and hear from two authors, Paul O’Connor and Eva Cooney, to understand why they took this approach in their research.
What does it mean to have a collaborative approach to healthcare?
There are many ways to describe a collaborative approach to healthcare, but the end goal remains the same – well-coordinated, high-quality, patient-centered care. Some definitions include:
- Interprofessional collaborative practice (ICP) is a healthcare model where professionals from different departments work together to provide an integrated and cohesive approach to patient care.
- Co-design in healthcare is still a relatively novel concept. It involves multiple stakeholders, such as healthcare staff, patient representatives and advocates, and researchers, working together to design new services or products to enhance patient outcomes.
Why do we need greater collaboration in healthcare?
As patients enter the healthcare system, they can meet many healthcare professionals, including:
- General Practitioners
- Nurses
- Pharmacists
- Physicians
However, rarely are these professionals ever in the same room at the same time, discussing the same patient. It’s easy to see how this could lead to gaps in care, and negatively impact patient outcomes. This is a challenge that healthcare professionals, researchers, and patient advocates need to address together, and a collaborative approach to patient care could be the solution.
Each healthcare professional has unique perspectives and valuable insights about a patient. As a result, they will notice different symptoms and consider different possibilities or interventions based on their professional expertise. So, by encouraging those from multiple specialisms to take a team-based approach, they could develop and implement more effective interventions to improve patient care and outcomes.
Furthermore, the input of patient advocates with an insight into how patients feel toward treatments and services can save a great deal of time and effort by pointing out something that may not have been considered by the clinicians involved. This is where a collaborative approach could provide real value in healthcare delivery and research.
As such, collaborative approaches can benefit all patients but are particularly useful when determining treatments and solutions for complex diagnoses. For this reason, it is essential all involved in delivering patient care and developing interventions are well aligned to ensure the best possible patient experience and outcomes.
We spoke to the authors of two HRB Open Research articles about their experiences with collaborative approaches to better understand how collective input could improve patient outcomes.
Identifying interventions to improve hand hygiene compliance in the intensive care unit through co-design with stakeholders [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]
Paul O’Connor, Kathryn Lambe, Sinéad Lydon, Jenny McSharry, Molly Byrne, Janet Squires, Michael Power, Christine Domegan.
Hand hygiene (HH) received considerable attention during the COVID‐19 pandemic as an effective preventative measure against contracting the virus. But beyond the pandemic, hand hygiene is a known and successful intervention for infection control more generally. More than half of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) may be preventable, with appropriate hand hygiene considered the most effective safeguard. Despite this, compliance remains low.
This is problematic, particularly in Intensive Care Units (ICU), where HAIs continue to present a severe challenge to safe, effective, and efficient healthcare. For this reason, Paul O’Connor et al. set out to develop potential interventions to improve hand hygiene compliance in ICUs.
So, what did they find?
O’Connor et al. found the following interventions could be successful in increasing HH compliance:
- Ensuring the availability of essential supplies such as alcohol-based hand rubs
- Interventions involving role models and peer-to-peer accountability and support
- Targeted HH training and direct, tailored feedback for ICU staff
“The co-design approach was crucial to the study. There is little point in researchers, like me, proposing an intervention that cannot be applied in the work environment as they are not practical or achievable”
– Paul O’Connor, National University of Ireland – Galway
How did a co-design approach help identify effective interventions?
O’Connor felt it was essential the study team took this co-design approach so the interventions identified could be applied in the actual work environment. As a result, they sought feedback on the suitability of each intervention from a panel of stakeholders, including members of the public, ICU staff, and researchers.
Paul O’Connor says, “We found that the co-design approach effectively identified a range of potential interventions for improving hand hygiene compliance.”
Pharmacists’ perceived role in supporting diabetes education and self-management in Ireland: a qualitative study [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]
Eva Cooney, David O’Riordan, Jennifer McSharry
One in ten people around the world are living with diabetes. In response, structured diabetes education (SDE) programs have been developed and implemented internationally, with an increasing focus on empowering people with diabetes to self-manage their health. Yet, attendance remains low.
How could a collaborative approach help increase SDE uptake?
People with diabetes engage with a wide range of healthcare professionals throughout their diagnosis and treatment, including their consultant, diabetes nurse specialist, GP, and pharmacist. Despite communication between these different healthcare providers, it’s rare for their roles to crossover or meet in person with any regularity, if at all. In addition, those with diabetes will visit their pharmacist monthly, whereas they will likely only visit the diabetes clinic a couple of times a year.
Furthermore, pharmacists are primarily unaware of structured diabetes education programs. As a result, valuable opportunities for pharmacists to suggest these programs to those with diabetes and increase awareness and attendance are missed. Pharmacists could play a significant role in supporting diabetes education and self-management behaviors if they are more aware of such programs. Eva Cooney adds that one participant in the research suggested something as simple as pharmacists adding brochures on programs with prescriptions could go a long way to increasing engagement and participation.
Moreover, pharmacists could be particularly influential in increasing program uptake because many people trust their pharmacist and their recommendations. Cooney says, “The pharmacist may be able to identify when a person is struggling with aspects of their diabetes and can recommend attendance on both a proactive and reactive basis.”
What next?
So, with collaborative co-design approaches being a relatively novel concept in healthcare, what does the future look like for patients?
Both authors point to a need for further research on collaborative approaches to healthcare research. They agree that it would benefit everyone to establish efficient and practical approaches to co-design or interprofessional research. Paul O’Connor sees a “huge opportunity to take an interprofessional approach to health services research.” He adds, “just as we integrate Personal and Public Involvement (PPI, we should also integrate healthcare workers in the identification and development of interventions focused on changing the behavior of healthcare practitioners.”
So, it is clear practical collaborative approaches in healthcare can lead to a whole host of benefits for patients. By promoting an exchange of expertise and collective input, everyone involved in patient care and the development of interventions can break through barriers and solve complex problems, resulting in the best possible patient care and health outcomes, as reflected in Paul O’Connor and Eva Cooney’s research.