Interprofessional Team Collaboration in Health Care

Abstract

Health care is a multifaceted activity which requires health care professionals to work together for the patient or service users in a collaborative way to deliver the desired outcome. Hospitals are complex organisations humming with activities of heterogeneous groups of people such as doctors, nurses, paramedical and administrative staff, all working with a common goal of providing health care to service users (Kaini 2005, p.1). Health care professionals work together in a collaborative manner in various forms. It involves complex interactions between two or more members of different professional disciplines (Reel and Hutchings, 2007, pp.137). In a basic form, health care professionals consult their patients or service users and, each other as required, about the services needed by their service users. In more complex form of care, health care professionals work more closely, identifying together with service users what care services are required, who provides them and what adjustments need to be made to the health care plan and management. WHO (2010) asserts that ‘it is no longer enough for health workers to be professional, in the current global climate, health workers also need to be interprofessional (WHO, 2010, pp.36).