Interdisciplinary Communication

Imagine you are part of an interdisciplinary health care team in your organization.Although the team has been working together for several months, communication between members is not always efficient or effective, and the situation has become stressful for everyone. The team leader asks you to develop a presentation for the team that addresses the issue.

Preparation

Search the Capella library and the Internet for scholarly and professional peer-reviewed articles on communication. You will need at least three articles to use as support for your work on this assessment.

Directions

Create a 6–8-slide PowerPoint presentation to examine the communication issue and the risk it creates for positive health care outcomes.

• Describe the types of communication barriers that occur withinan interdisciplinary team.
  • Explain how the communication barriers can impact patient safety and health care outcomes.
  • Recommend specific evidence-based strategies to improve communication within the team.
  • Explain how the strategies will benefit team members and patients.

Use the notes section of each slide to expand your points and cite your supporting evidence. Also, include a title slide and a reference slide that lists the resources you used in this assessment.

Additional Requirements

• Use APA format for citations and references.
  • Be creative. Consider your intended audience.
• Questions to Consider

To deepen your understanding, you are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of your professional community.

• How might communication styles and perceptions influence clinical-practice decisions?
• What types of patient issues might require interdisciplinary collaboration, both within a health care delivery domain and within a community setting?
• Context

Effective communication is important in all organizations and is especially important in the area of health care. Communication can come in many forms, but the crucial factor is whether the communication is effective.

Collaboration among teams is important for the delivery of appropriate medical care and for providing the specialized skills necessary to meet the needs of patients and the public. Assessing the needs of a community may involve communication across several public service providers and private entities.

Maintaining open communication and collaboration among teams is essential to assess the needs of a community or those of patients and their families within a health care system. The same communication skills must be evident within the interdisciplinary health care team, or across the public and private sectors in a community, in order to promote collaboration and understanding and to provide the utmost quality service.

• Overview

Create a 6–8-slide PowerPoint presentation that describes communication barriers within an interdisciplinary team and how those barriers affect patient safety and health care outcomes. Offer a solution in which you recommend evidence-based strategies to improve communication within the team and explain how the strategies benefit the team and patients.

The ability to effectively communicate as part of interdisciplinary collaboration is essential for patient safety and successful health care delivery.

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:

• Competency 1: Explain the principles and practices of highly effective interdisciplinary collaboration.
  • Describe communication barriers that can occur within an interdisciplinary team.
  • Recommend evidence-based strategies to improve communication within an interdisciplinary team.
  • Explain how specific communication strategies benefit both team members and patients.
  • Competency 3: Explain the internal and external factors that can affect the health of individuals, families, communities, and populations.
    • Explain how communication barriers between members of an interdisciplinary team can affect patient safety and health care outcomes.
  • Competency 4: Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and consistent with the expectations of a nursing professional.
    • Write content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.
    • Correctly format citations and references using current APA style.

Interdisciplinary Communication Scoring Guide

Interdisciplinary Communication Scoring Guide Grading Rubric
Criteria	Non-performance	Basic	Proficient	Distinguished
Describe communication barriers that can occur within an interdisciplinary team.	Does not describe communication barriers that can occur within an interdisciplinary team.	Lists communication barriers that can occur within an interdisciplinary team.	Describes communication barriers that can occur within an interdisciplinary team.	Describes communication barriers that can occur within an interdisciplinary team and considers barriers within different forms of communication, including written, verbal, and nonverbal.
Explain how communication barriers between members of an interdisciplinary team can affect patient safety and health care outcomes.	Does not explain how communication barriers between members of an interdisciplinary team can affect patient safety and health care outcomes.	Explains how communication barriers between members of an interdisciplinary team can affect patient safety or health care outcomes, or the explanation is missing key elements.	Explains how communication barriers between members of an interdisciplinary team can affect patient safety and health care outcomes.	Explains how communication barriers between members of an interdisciplinary team can affect patient safety and health care outcomes, providing real-world examples that demonstrate in-depth understanding.
Recommend evidence-based strategies to improve communication within an interdisciplinary team.	Does not recommend evidence-based strategies to improve communication within an interdisciplinary team.	Recommends strategies to improve communication within an interdisciplinary team but does not support recommendations with evidence.	Recommends evidence-based strategies to improve communication within an interdisciplinary team.	Recommends evidence-based strategies to improve communication within an interdisciplinary team and suggests ways to effectively implement the strategies
Explain how specific communication strategies benefit both team members and patients.	Does not explain how specific communication strategies benefit both team members and patients.	Explains how specific communication strategies benefit either team members or patients, or the explanation does not address critical aspects.	Explains how specific communication strategies benefit both team members and patients.	Explains how specific communication strategies benefit team members and patients, as well as the organization and the community.
Write content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.	Does not write content clearly, logically, or with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.	Writes with errors in clarity, logic, grammar, punctuation, or mechanics.	Writes content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.	Writes clearly and logically with correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics; uses relevant evidence to support a central idea.
Correctly format citations and references using current APA style.	Does not correctly format citations and references using current APA style.	Uses current APA style to format citations and references but with numerous errors.	Correctly formats citations and references using current APA style with few errors.	Correctly formats citations and references with no errors.