Communication In Multidisciplinary Health Teams Essay

Communication In Multidisciplinary Health Teams - Essay Example Their historic experience has made nursing and midwifery the unifying catalysts in health teams. Their sustaining nodal core has been their humane 'caring'. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates a shortage of more than 4 million doctors, nurses, midwives, worldwide (1600 medical schools; 6000 nursing schools; 375 public health schools). Inadequate remuneration adds to the loss of trained health-care personnel, to emigration (a recent analysis of nearly 400 emigr nurses in London found that as many as two thirds of them were recruited from Cameroon by agencies to work in Britain). An additional 2% of the nursing workforce is lost to retirement, each year. The existing local health resources, left, have to confront the growing burden of high-priority services required to meet the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs)(2) established by WHO: To confront this world challenge with the existing shortage of nurses, the World Health Organisation has proposed the development of multidisciplinary teamwork at country level (3). This strategy multiplies existing health workforce in a synergy to surpass the sum of each individual. However, teamwork requires the leadership of nurses and midwifery to integrate and coordinate collaborative partnership, enhancing information exchange, as advanced technology creates medical specialisation and sub-specialisation. Shann DEFINITION Shannon-Weiner had described linear communication process as the flow of INFORMATION (message) between an INPUT (emissary), and an OUTPUT (receptor), through a modelling CHANNEL. Now-a-days, the INPUT runs the INFORMATION through the 'black box' (channel with an unknown inner mechanism, that gives an unpredictable OUTPUT), in system analogy. This exchange of a heterogeneous, concurrently running process distributes message transactions with unreliable execution. Non-linearity must be harnessed by clear inter-process workflow mechanisms to avoid entropy (the natural tendency towards disorganization and chaos). To better understand communication in multidisciplinary teams, we must first delve into the deeper meaning implied in each of these words, for a comprehensive analysis: "Teams" differs from "groups", because they unite people in a common purpose; whereas "groups" are encounter, meeting spaces where feelings, experience or ideas are shared and exchanged, without a fixed agenda. The original word, "team" comes from the Greek, meaning two horses or oxen, together, driving a plough. Multidisciplinary is a term coined recently to describe the multiple specialities (functional disciplines) that interact in a common job. Unlike interdisciplinary, which describes the interaction within the team, multidisciplinary teams work together towards a common objective. Multidisciplinary is external networking; interdisciplinary is internal interaction. Communication which comes from the latin "comunicare" stems for 'common'. It is interactive information that binds a "common" network. If, however, it is broken down into the prefix: cum- with and munio/munire- defense, historic origins from the need for defense to make for survival. Information has become the bonding link that fortifies a common front of understanding and protects against