Institute of Medicine (2001) emphasizes that current health care delivery system needs serious improvements, and one of the proposed directions of enhancing the quality of medical services is the introduction of the interdisciplinary approach to care for optimal patient outcomes. The ideas expressed by the Institute of Medicine correspond to the concept of the Scholarship of Integration, which emphasizes the importance of avoiding narrow specialization. Comprehensive education and enhancement of the integrated view of knowledge appear to be the keys to preparing the highly effective specialists (Hutchings, Huber, & Ciccone, 2011). The Scholarship of Integration includes the comprehensive approach to facts and their interpretation based the knowledge of the whole specter of factors related to the central issue. The research meeting the focus of Institute of Medicine and Scholarship of Integration is proposed below.
Research problem
Lack of cooperation between the specialists providing different types of healthcare services for patients and the causes of their ineffective interprofessional communication.
Interprofessional communication is one of the practices aimed at enhancing collaboration between specialists working in the healthcare system (AAMC, 2011). However, most of the people involved in the process of providing medical services demonstrate low motivation to cooperate with other colleagues and receive consultations of the specialists working in other fields of healthcare. Such situation has a huge negative impact on the quality of services provided by medical institutions and should be changed for the sake of receiving better health outcomes for patients.
Research question
What are the prevalent causes of the unwillingness of medical specialists to involve in effective collaboration?
Finding the answer to this question is essential for defining the potential ways of changing the current situation. Investigating the motives of specialists unwilling to engage in interprofessional communication could help to reveal what are the main obstacles on the way to enhancing it and suggest the potential methods of dealing with the problems. By finding the answer to the proposed question, the researchers could contribute to the quality of healthcare system by shedding the light on the initial causes on one of its important flaws.
Research design
Qualitative research based on the data collected with the help of questionnaires spread among the randomly-chosen participants.
The sample of the research should be randomly chosen from the specialists working in different fields of healthcare in various medical institutions. The questionnaires should contain the list of open and multiple-choice questions aimed at revealing the participants’ view of the causes of the investigated problem. The questions should focus on the motivational factor of the lack of effective communication between the specialists in different fields and relate to such potential causes of the problem as lack of knowledge, the inappropriate organization of work, lack of initiatives provided by the institution, personal attitudes, etc.
The obtained data should be collected and analyzed to find the common patterns in the participants’ answers and reveal what are the most common causes of the investigated problem. The proper analysis of the results of the research would help to understand the underlying conditions of poor cooperation between the medical practitioners and suggest the possible ways of enhancing interprofessional communication. The findings of such research could be useful for the whole healthcare system and help to find the methods of making it more effective and beneficial for the patients.
The employment of the principles discussed by Institute of Medicine and related to the Scholarship of Integration can lead to significant improvement in many spheres of knowledge and services. The proposed research reflects the focus of discussed concepts and ideas.
References
AAMC. (2011). Interprofessional collaborative practise competencies. Web.
Hutchings, P., Huber, M. T., & Ciccone, A. (2011). The scholarship of teaching and learning reconsidered: Institutional integration and impact. Sudbury, Massachusetts: Jossey-Bass.
Institute of Medicine. (2001). Crossing the quality chasm: A new health system for the 21st century. Web.