Collaboration In Health Care

In our ever changing healthcare system the need for collaboration is more needed than ever. Collaboration as defined on Wikipedia “is a process defined by the recursive interaction of knowledge and mutual learning between two or more people who are working together, in an intellectual endeavor, toward a common goal” (Wikipedia, 2007). Collaboration is a complex process that requires knowledge sharing and joint responsibility for patient care. Sometimes it occurs within long-term relationships between health professionals. On other occasions, collaboration may involve short encounters. In these settings, there is no second chance to collaborate effectively. The challenge then, is to make the most of all interactions in order to use the best knowledge and abilities of all the health team and produce positive patient outcomes. (Collaboration: It’s Worth Our Time and Effort)

Several case studies point of how collaboration is improving the outcome of medicine simply by having better access to the patients’ medical record. Many hospitals and primary care facilities have or are in the process of getting an electronic medical record system to induce the collaborative efforts between medical staff and patient. The medical environment is changing rapidly of the last 5 years and changing their processes to incorporate the collaborative efforts of medical staff and patient by creating electronic systems that use email and collaborative tools. Once a medical staff employee updates this information on the system it will then be automatically available to provide it to the patient through the web. This alone is changing the way medicine is delivered and the speed of how it is available to the patient. There are also joint efforts for collaboration between different health care systems to provide that information to any doctor that may need to see it. An example would be if an X-ray is taken at one hospital system because it is closer to the patient and then the patient go to another hospital system to fix that medical condition. The doctor can access the X-ray digitally and then make a diagnosis and effectively treat the problem. Microsoft now has a joint effort with Cerner to provide collaboration between doctor and patient by using Microsoft’s Live Communication Server and Microsoft’s Exchange Email system to provide better communication with all medical staff involved with the patient’s care. “Live Communications Server and Communicator 2005 give us more real-time knowledge of where people are and how to contact them. That’s definitely allowed us to be more productive.” (Microsoft Office Customer Solution Case Study, April 2006) This not only gives them the flexibility of knowing more information but creates an effective solution to provide that information from a collaborative approach. This method of information sharing is not only improving patient care but at the same time it is cutting down the costs while maximizing the profits these institutions receive.

A Patient Health Record (PHR) in healthcare is fast becoming a very major and critical way to communicate that stimulates the collaborative efforts of all medical staff. Patients are driving this collaborative effort because they are demanding it. Not directly, but by the patient demanding more information about their health it is forcing medical institutions to react. All healthcare institutions can no longer ignore that speed and accuracy of these systems are improving the patients overall care. Not long ago, it was difficult for many different medical staff to communicate about a patient’s record easily without numerous phone calls and faxes being transmitted by medical staff to try and get the information they needed. Email is an effective way to communicate, but online collaborative systems are becoming a much better choice to provide urgent and nom urgent patient care.

It isn’t always easy to create a collaborative environment as a side-by-side level of communication. Communication