The social boundary in healthcare is reinforced by socially and culturally determined differentials between healthcare professionals and patients. Being considered as established social rules, social boundaries can dictate various aspects of a person’s behavior, which makes them a potential impermeable barrier in healthcare practice. For example, differences in social backgrounds may significantly complicate the establishment of a healthy nurse-patient relationship, which is crucial for the provision of personalized care and the achievement of desired patient outcomes. Furthermore, the social boundary may negatively impact the way healthcare professionals interact with the patient’s family members, especially when they need to make individual decisions regarding a patient’s treatment. The successful implementation of evidence-based practices may be impeded by the social boundary that jeopardizes interprofessional communication and reduces team cohesion.
Overcoming the social boundary is a tough challenge that requires much time and effort of a leader. Despite the fact that social differences mostly relate to the intrinsic nature of humans, a leader could find it helpful to employ communication and teambuilding strategies to facilitate interprofessional collaboration and develop emotional intelligence in co-workers. For example, I can minimize the potential effects of social differences and encourage the staff to recognize others’ emotions and regulate their own ones by promoting open and honest communication. Also, team-building activities can help establish unity between the personnel, making people more empathetic to each other. It is crucial to promote interprofessional collaboration by involving healthcare professionals in multiple projects where they are responsible for different tasks (Morley & Cashell, 2017). In order to lessen the effect of the social boundary in a nurse-patient relationship, nurses should be extensively educated to center their care delivery around the principles of fidelity, beneficence, and veracity.
Interprofessional relations are a foundational aspect for promoting high-quality value-based collaborative healthcare. To overcome the social boundary, I as a leader should foster healthy relationships between employees that are guided by the values of trust, mutual respect, and professionalism. In this case, social differences existing between healthcare professionals will be mitigated by the sense of respect for colleagues regardless of what social backgrounds they came from and commitment to the delivery of safe care to patients. Professionalism dictates that the personnel working in healthcare should abide by several codes of ethics and standards, which, in turn, define the acceptable and expected behavior (Kargas & Varoutas, 2015). By sticking to these rules, the staff will develop an understanding that any boundaries impeding high-quality care delivery should be removed. By fostering a trusting relationship between the workers, I will ensure that they act as a cohesive and collaborative team in which every member feels valued.
Human resource management is a cross-cutting function that is necessary to strengthen the overall system of healthcare. The selected boundary may be overcome by mobilizing the interprofessional team to lead an organizational change. Only when healthcare professionals learn how to work together on a daily basis can they develop emotional competence and respect for their colleagues, as well as better adapt to collaborative decision-making. Special attention should be paid to senior leadership, as it should clearly communicate the organization’s mission and vision to employees and encourage them to cooperate instead of working independently. If needed, a formal coaching program may be developed to change the way people interact with each other at work.
References
Kargas, A. D., & Varoutas, D. (2015). On the relation between organizational culture and leadership: An empirical analysis. Cogent Business & Management, 2(1), 1-18.
Morley, L., & Cashell, A. (2017). Collaboration in health care. Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences, 48(2), 207-216.