Trust is an essential ingredient of effective healthcare delivery. It’s important for interprofessional as well as inter-organisational collaboration.
A 2018 literature review concluded that collaboration leads to more job satisfaction, improved morale and a better working atmosphere. Unfortunately, health providers don’t always trust each other. The authors of the review found 5 sources of distrust:
- Doubting the other’s motivation in providing care and the perceived benefit for him/her
- Feeling threatened by the other’s involvement and being afraid of losing some territory
- A difference in philosophies and scope of practice
- Negative images of the profession
- Lack of confidence in the other’s skills and lack of awareness of the other’s role in patient care.
Other ingredients of effective collaboration include adequate communication, respect, mutual acquaintanceship, equal power-distribution, shared goals, congruent philosophies and values, consensus, patient-centeredness and environmental factors.
The authors did not explore the level of importance of each factor but I am putting my money on trust as the secret ingredient. If we continue to distrust each other, collaboration will remain a challenge. The question is, how to change this?
Having commonly agreed international healthcare and ethical standards is how this can be addressed. Each professional membership body is a signatory to the standards which are self-regulated by each professional body. They can be automated and codified into computer systems to get rid of any red tape concerns. This is how the accounting profession runs globally and the courts recognise this. This reduces medico-legal disputes and malpractice insurance premiums.
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