In home health there are multiple teams that I work side by side with but 3 of the main ones are
physical therapy (PT), occupational therapy (OT), and physicians. When working in home health
it is important that interprofessional communication happens or things could be missed causing
patient’s harm. One way we do this is by having interdisciplinary teams (IDT) which happens
once weekly on Wednesdays for my team. During this time, we discuss each patient on our team,
their plan of care and how they are progressing towards their goals as well as if we need to
change the plan of care up if they are not progressing. The issues addressed at IDT usually
include what happens during our visits to provide patient care, nursing, PT, and OT express our
perspectives of how the patient is doing merging into a holistic, patient-centered plan of care. By
having IDT weekly, it ensures that collaborative work can be measure, ensuring leadership for
interprofessional practice emerges, allows for direct, truthful, and positive communication occurs
(Pilon, B., et al., 2015). The next competency my team demonstrates is values and ethics. As a
team we have an obligation to our patients to work together, have mutual respect to provide the
best patient care. It is important that as a team the interest of patients are at the center,
demonstrate ethical conduct and quality of care in one’s contributions to team based care, act
with honesty and integrity and maintain competence in one’s own profession and scope of
practice (Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel, 2011). The last one is
roles/responsibilities by which requires understanding of how professional roles and
responsibilities complement each other in patient-centered and community/ population-oriented
care. It is important that team members communicate one’s roles and responsibilities clearly to
patients and other professionals, how the team will work together to provide the best patient
care and forge interdependent relationships with other professions to improve care and advance
learning (Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel, 2011). I feel like my team and
myself could always improve on each of the IP competencies. Ways that this can be done is by
working in interprofessional teams to utilize information, provide patient centered care, apply
quality improvement and employ evidenced based practice. It is also important to demonstrate
consistently core values evidenced by professionally working together and quality of cross
professional exchanges.
Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel. (2011). Core competencies for
interprofessional collaborative practice: Report of an expert panel. Interprofessional
Education Collaborative.
Pilon, B., Ketel, C., & Davidson, H., (2015). Evidence-based development in nurse-led
interprofessional teams. Nursing Management, 22(3), 35-40.
https://doi.org/10.7748/nm22.3.35.e1332