The notion of health care encompasses a variety of essentials and requirements that are to be met in order to provide high-quality care and meaningful experience to the patients. However, according to researchers, the conventional model of professional collaboration is no longer enough in terms of securing efficient long-term results, as patients themselves, along with their close surroundings and environment, are to be taken into account (Sangaleti et al., 2017). The latter scenario may be detected in the context of both multi-functional and interdisciplinary teams, which incorporate both professional points of view and patients’ perceptions of the setting (Morley & Cashell, 2017). Thus, it is not uncommon for professionals to make evidence-based predictions on the patterns of health care collaboration in the future.
A prime example of such a formulated prediction is Ham and Brown’s (n.d.) report titled “The future is now.” The primary goal of the present article was to define the vector of health care development in the nearest future so that medical professionals are able to adjust to the demands of the modern environment. Hence, the primary purpose of the article may be defined as the authors’ intention to promote both interprofessional collaboration and cooperation with patients when planning an intervention. Ham & Brown (n.d.) provides an exhaustive number of reasons that define the urge to change, including the increasing rates of the aging population, digital transformation of health care, and an extensive list of highly individual medical conditions. For this reason, they decide to emphasize the inevitability of closer interaction with patients during the decision-making process, as they are frequently not regarded as full-scale participants of the scenario. Instead, they are perceived as the end-users of a medical treatment plan.
When using such words as “uncertainty” and “unpredictability” in the report, the authors are not likely to have an intention of intimidating medical professionals and patients with the fear of the unknown (Ham & Brown, n.d., p. 2). Instead, they are willing to promote the idea of embracing the change and moving further away from the conventional patterns of predetermined health care plans and shifting toward flexibility.
The core idea of such flexibility is outlined in the principle of agility. The notion of an agile framework presupposes one’s ability to respond quickly to changes in order to restructure the next steps for the sake of a more efficient outcome while engaging with as many stakeholders as possible to see the problem from a variety of perspectives. Researchers suggest that some of the major contributors to the development of healthcare facilities’ agility include environmental scanning, resource availability, innovativeness, and organizational leadership (Vaishnavi et al., 2019). The report’s authors present the same outlook by introducing innovative ideas, such as co-opting patients and creating technological solutions for the ones unable to reach out to the hospital premises. A prime example of an effort for such collaboration is the Dubai Health Experience network developed by the Dubai Health Authority (DHA, 2021). This platform aims at creating an all-accessible network that helps patients and professionals reach out to a number of medical facilities in Dubai.
It is necessary to dwell on the ways in which the change to an agile framework might influence some of the major stakeholders, including patients, staff, and systems. To begin with, such a scenario provides patients with both positive and negative implications. On the one hand, they would be satisfied with the quality of personalized approach to the treatment and advanced abilities in terms of obtaining quality care outside the hospital. On the other hand, making patients experts in terms of treatment provides a high level of responsibility for people, as some of them, while excited with the opportunity to participate directly in the decision-making process, are incapable of defining what is best for them. So, they would have to choose the extent to which they trust themselves in order to explicitly discuss treatment specifics with the medical team.
The implications for the health care staff may also be quite challenging at first, but they would appear beneficial in the long-term perspective. Thus, the ideas introduced by the authors concern the extent to which communication both within the professional community and with patients is crucial for the health care of the future (Ham & Brown, n.d.). However, their primary goal was to make sure that the notion of collaboration in the health care setting did not exclude direct communication with patients as major stakeholders. Indeed, according to the researchers, interprofessional collaboration, although slightly improving patient outcomes, does not guarantee better treatment results in a number of cases (Reeves et al., 2017). For this reason, it would be imperative for the staff to take into account the perspective of patients in terms of the decision-making process in order to strive for professional excellence.
Finally, it is necessary to mention the implication for the overall concept of a health care system. The notion of health care is most commonly defined as an organization of people and institutions that deliver health care services to the population of interest. However, if previously, such a system included solely interprofessional communication on the level of health care facilities and public institutions, today’s definition of health care extends to the system that involves technological advancements to make quality care accessible almost everywhere. For this reason, the authors of this report imply that the sooner health professionals reassess their relationship with patients and technological assessing tools, the sooner the future of quality health care will make an actual impact on public health.
References
Dubai Health Authority [DHA]. (2021). FAQ. Web.
Ham, C., & Brown, A. (n.d.). The future is now. Kings Fund. Web.
Morley, L., & Cashell, A. (2017). Collaboration in health care. Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences, 48(2), 207-216.
Reeves, S., Pelone, F., Harrison, R., Goldman, J., & Zwarenstein, M. (2017). Interprofessional collaboration to improve professional practice and healthcare outcomes. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 6. Web.
Sangaleti, C., Schveitzer, M. C., Peduzzi, M., Zoboli, E. L. C. P., & Soares, C. B. (2017). Experiences and shared meaning of teamwork and interprofessional collaboration among health care professionals in primary health care settings: A systematic review. JBI Evidence Synthesis, 15(11), 2723-2788.
Vaishnavi, V., Suresh, M., & Dutta, P. (2019). Modelling the readiness factors for agility in healthcare organization: A TISM approach. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 26(7), 2372-2400.