Inter professional collaboration
Health care organizations comprise clinical settings or departments with diverse categories of professionals, including nurses and doctors that must collaborate to serve patients better. All the professionals must understand how the clinical setting’s technical, structural, and operational systems work to avoid functional mistakes (Bradshaw & Hultquist, 2017). They must also be incorporated in decision making regarding the introduction of new changes that affect service delivery and quality of operations. For example, the introduction of a new electronic medical record (EMR) system that interfaces all departments in the acute-care hospital must be executed in an organized manner to gain acceptance. Because of role-playing training strategy or simulation, the bid to introduce the new medical record system in an acute-care hospital to promote inter-professional collaboration will succeed.
The Clinical Setting
As noted, an acute-care center is a vital medical facility that provides a range of health care services, including gynecology, mental, oncology, rehabilitation, and surgical services. Service delivery in the hospitals is supported by several health care professionals that include clinicians, nurses, doctors, radiologists, physicians, lab workers. Others include nurse aides, dieticians, and environmental experts. All the categories of experts and professionals are important since they play a critical role in improving patients' wellbeing. They must work symbiotically and collaboratively to ensure that patients receive the best medical care promptly. Achieving this goal requires the professionals to embrace a bipartisan approach when diagnosing patients, making decisions, and implementing new changes as manifest in the case of a new medical record system.
Overall Plan
According to In Bradshaw, In Hultquist & In Hagler (2020), change is inevitable and highly necessary to propel organizations to greater heights of performance. Therefore, the proposal to integrate a new medical record system at the acute-care hospital is a step in the right direction towards enhancing efficiency and quality of service delivery. The new system will revolutionize patient information management, data sharing between departments, adherence to privacy standards, and increased data processing speed. However, noble gains cannot be realized if the new system's implementation process is not managed effectively. This calls for the incorporation of an educator who understands how the system work to teach all the professionals in the organization. Teaching and sensitizing the medical staff about the objectives and how the system works will neutralize their resistance culture to new changes. To succeed, the educator must plan and strategize on the best approach or teaching method to adopt. First, the educator must understand the system properly to enable him to deliver reliable teachings.
EMR System Introduction
The electronic medical record system is a digital information system that facilitates the integration and connection of various communication systems to improve data management and sharing (Fressola, 2016). In health care settings, the EMR system aid digitization of clinical services, patient data, and the sharing of clinical information between departments. The new system will improve clinical outcomes by eliminating the rampant delays and confusion associated with poor management, processing, and dissemination of patient data between departments. The ERM system will help the hospital serve many patients daily, enhance efficiency in service delivery, promote flexibility in various departments, guarantee collaboration of health professionals, and improve access to quality medical services.
Achieving Buy-in
As an educator, it is imperative to bring every stakeholder on board and make them buy-in and embrace the new technology idea. Concerning the integration of the new EMR system, the management supports the move wholeheartedly. However, the educator must buy-in or bring on board various professionals working in the hospital. This is achievable through multiple steps. First, the educator must embrace the element of co-creation that involves the invitation of insights from other stakeholders and allowing everyone to feel vested in the outcomes (Alexander, 2018). Secondly, professionals' buy-in is achievable by creating a conversation based on respect and trust. The third step is to make sure that the professionals understand the new system and its roles. The move would reduce the level of criticism and resistance to change. The next step is for the educator to know if the change process is negotiable, prepare to ask questions, determine how to handle feedback, and develop reliable follow-up systems (Alexander, 2018). All the actions would help to build strong inter-professional collaborations.
Staff Training
Various steps will be taken to equip the staff members with relevant knowledge on how the new system works through a sustainable training program. The initiative's purpose is to ensure that the inter-professionals develop necessary functional teams, problem-solving skills, and inter-communication skills to work efficiently (Billings & Halstead, 2016). Similarly, the initiative aims to help them to understand their roles, including the scope of practice when using the EMR system to improve clinical outcomes. The first step to be considered is to notify the professionals who should receive the training to prepare. The second step is to identify the training venue and plan on the training scope, method, and period. The third step involves the procurement of the teaching equipment and training software. The next step is to start the training of the staff members about the EMR system to sharpen how they are perceived or perceive the others. Similarly, educators must set realistic deadlines and pick the right or appropriate training format (Billings & Halstead, 2016).
Teaching Strategy
The best teaching strategy that will create a significant impact across departments within the hospital is the role-playing simulation (In Bradshaw et al., 2020). The role-playing strategy is a valuable technique that enables learners to establish connections between existing processes or ideas and new ones. The concept also helps in understanding how the interconnected systems work in a logical structure. Role-playing remains an effective way to foster collaborative communication in hospitals (Bradshaw & Hultquist, 2017). The teaching strategy has been identified as one of the best for teaching clinical care and health care professionals. The rationale for this is that it allows healthcare professionals to develop role clarity, functional teams, refine problem-solving skills, and understand the scope of practice.
In this case, the teaching strategy will help the health care professionals to understand the role of the new EMR system in creating a sustainable departmental interconnection. The teaching strategy will enable the stakeholders to interactively participate in the integration of the new system through clinical simulations (Bradshaw & Hultquist, 2017). The strategy will put learners at the center of the entire program to allow them to participate by asking questions and contributing to the system integration and trials. Moreover, it will help them seek clarifications on how the system works and learn specific roles that each category of professionals will play to guarantee the new system’s successful integration. The highly interactive nature of the approach, will help the professionals develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, including cognitive abilities that will facilitate the realization of positive outcomes or successful implementation of the new system (Bradshaw & Hultquist, 2017). At the tail end, the approach will create room for debriefing that will help to establish the success and failures which will trigger the appropriate actions.
Conclusion
Ultimately, role-playing is the best teaching strategy for health care professionals because it promotes collaboration and collective responsibility among employees in hospitals. The concept guarantees acceptance of the new EMR system among health care professionals by encouraging stakeholder participation in its implementation process. It provides a participatory approach that will enable system educators to teach every group of health care professionals their specific roles in enhancing the system’s functionality and how it will impact them. They will also learn the system’s primary functions, such as increasing efficiency in service delivery and patient data sharing between departments to promote quick medical response.
References
Alexander, M. (2018). 6 Ways to Increase Buy-In from Project Stakeholders. Retrieved from. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/6-ways-to-increase-buy-in-from-project-stakeholders/.
Bradshaw, M. & Hultquist, B. (2017). Innovative Teaching Strategies in Nursing and Related Health Professions. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Billings, D. M., & Halstead, J. A. (2016). Teaching in Nursing: A Guide for Faculty. St. Louis, Missouri: Elsevier.
Fressola, M. C. (2016). Transition from Clinician to Educator. Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
In Bradshaw, M. J., In Hultquist, B. L. & In Hagler, D. (2020). Innovative Teaching Strategies in Nursing and Related Health Professions. Burlington, Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
