Question

What are some collaborative roles that can provide safe care in a health care setting?

Answer 1

Collaborative roles are essential for better patient outcomes, only thing is that the person who is involved in collaborative care should be confident enough, then only he can opine and give the best care and can contribute positively to the patient care.Few collaborative roles are

Nurse-is the best person to give collabrative care for a patient ,because she is the one being with the patient for long time and knowing the patient in better way.So she can suggest the plan of care and can correct the doctor if there is anything that the doctor do wrongly.For example the culture and sensitivity report of the patient received and the doctor is continued to give the drug which is resistant for that particular organism ,the nurse can ask the doctor and correct him.

Pharmacologist - He can do the best for patient care by checking and correcting the drug dosage by checking the safe dose range, the medicine time by checking the food drug interaction and the drug to drug interaction to acquire the maximum benefit of the drug etc.

Dietician - Can be in a collaborative role to provide the best patient care by advising the do's and don'ts.

For example, if the patient with diabetes malitus and complete bed ridden is getting a ryles tube feed to obtain the adequate calorie as per the doctors advice, the dietician can recommend the doctor to change the brand if the sugar level of the patient is persistently high.

Also there are certain things that a dietician can do to avoid the complications of certain drugs due to food drug interaction and the poor outcome due to food drug interactions.

Other roles include pharmasist, personnel who help the patient meet his activities of daily living,even the security staff in the hospital by not allowing too many visiters and thereby reducing the chances of infection.