Interdisciplinary Relationship
An interdisciplinary relationship or communication is an approach whereby different health practitioners from different health departments, together with their patients, collaborate and work together. The approach can be achieved by sharing responsibilities and promoting independence in the conduction of roles while respecting individual members’ autonomy and experiences.
Improving Intergroup Relationships in Healthcare Settings
Intergroup relationships and communications are supposed to be effective; thus, if there are any challenges or issues, they are supposed to be addressed through improving them. It is necessary to note that communication difficulties are not considered a problem; instead, it is viewed as a symptom that can be detected in advance and resolved. Three vital approaches can be pursued to ensure an intergroup relationship: social identity, socialization, and communities of practice.
Communities of practice
According to Bartunek (2020), Efforts have been made to enhance effective collaboration in healthcare practice. Bartunek states that there have to be cross-occupational and cross-organizational communities of practice acquainted with the quality plan for the improvements to be made. The first way of ensuring that cross-disciplinary in the communities of practice is cross-discipline Crew Resource management. The purpose of using this approach is to enhance communication amongst healthcare practitioners through addressing problems that may include status issues, which will, in the end, lead to the improvement of the management of patients. The training may include lowly ranked individuals like the nurses being encouraged to raise concerns to the higher authority. On their part, the higher authority, which happens to be the physicians, must listen to the nurses’ issues. Such kind of communication leads to improvement in health care.
Socialization
Socialization is the other approach that is effective in improving intergroup relationships. Medical personnel from different departments are encouraged to socialize with one another, enabling them to create a bond that traverses the health care profession. The approach is useful, especially amongst interns and medical students, whereby those charged with seeing them through their training, also known as mentors, maybe rotated regularly. The process will enable the student to develop a good relationship from socializing with different medical personnel. During the process, they acquire different skills as we all have different skills or ways of resolving the issue.
Social identities
Bartunek states that it is vital for a significant relationship to expand participants’ social identities and ensure that it goes beyond their professions (2020). Participants are often advised to make additions to their identities that will also be based on health issues. Bartunek further states that the approach may be superordinate identities which comprise of several groups (2020). By accomplishing the superordinate identities, intergroup bias will reduce significantly.
As mentioned earlier, effective communication is crucial not only in health care but in other sectors also. The method used in conveying information and how the purported information is received is significant in determining the result. Health professions are supposed to communicate clearly to achieve their objective, which is maintaining patients’ health. However, communication cannot exist where the relationship is not good; thus, interdisciplinary communications reduces the possibilities of halting care continuity. The medical personnel will be working as a team, which has been enhanced by a good relationship (Bartunek, 2020). It is necessary to note that the approaches used in improving intergroup relationships in healthcare settings go a long way in reducing medical sector errors. The personnel will enable people to comprehend directives given to them related to the administration of treatment.