Remote Collaboration and Evidence-Based Care

Hi everyone, my name is —, and I am here to present an interesting topic: “Remote Collaboration and evidence-based care plan.” So, what’s the purpose of remote collaboration? A remote collaboration occurs between patients and healthcare staff who are not physically located in the same place. So, remote collaboration refers to the use of technology to facilitate communication and collaboration between far-located patients and healthcare staff. Remote collaboration has made the process of collecting health data, providing support, and follow-ups easier for nurses and patients (Weinberg et al., 2023). This method is also beneficial for patients with mobility issues. Calling or texting your healthcare professional is easier than spending money on a commute so this method is also cost-effective (Weinberg et al., 2023). This assessment provides an evidence-based plan to collaborate with patients and staff to improve patient quality of life.

Evidence-Based Plan

This assessment focuses on the case of a two-year-old patient named Caitlyn who has symptoms of pneumonia. Caitlyn has been hospitalized twice after her birth as she experienced Meconium Ileus at that time. Afterward, she had to come back to the hospital back and forth due to shallow breathing, unintended weight loss, and reduced breathing sounds. It is difficult for Caitlyn’s parents to visit the healthcare center back and forth because they live far away. So, to provide high-quality care to Caitlyn, a team of healthcare providers, including nurses, pulmonologists and other health experts collaborate remotely. Using remote collaboration, they can provide Caitlyn with the support she needs via phone calls or messages (Howland et al., 2020).

Caitlyn is diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and this condition requires continuous care and monitoring to live a healthy life. However, because she lives far away from the healthcare center, an evidence-based plan is crucial to guide healthcare professionals form a remote collaboration to support the healthy living of Caitlyn (Pilla et al., 2022). The evidence-based strategies can include giving awareness to Janice, Caitlyn’s mother. Providing awareness about a disease, its treatment, and prevention allows families to provide a better and healthier environment for the patient that supports the treatment (Kissani et al., 2020). It is important to note that the awareness provided to Caitlyn’s family is based on updated information.

Another evidence-based strategy to support Caitlyn’s treatment is for the collaboration team to maintain virtual contact such as via Skype with Caitlyn’s mother to keep regular check. Moreover, Janice will be able to tell healthcare professionals about any serious complication that occurs through virtual communication (Donaghy et al., 2019). Furthermore, healthcare staff can involve social workers in the case of Caitlyn to provide her transportation and CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) in case of an emergency. 

Further Information Or Data

Remote collaboration can help healthcare staff get to know their patients more in-depth in other areas of life besides health conditions. Such as socioeconomic status, genetic issues, and medical records of Caitlyn. 

Evidence-Based Model for Care Plan

Different evidence-based models such as the IOWA model can help healthcare providers enhance patient care quality. This model serves as a guide for healthcare staff to implement evidence-based practice (EBP) in the treatment interventions they provide to their patients. To understand how this model helps healthcare providers with Caitlyn’s case, it is important to know about the detailed steps of this IOWA model. The first stage is to identify the problem. The next five stages are to develop a research question, find evidence for it, incorporate evidence with clinical expertise, and then implement and evaluation of the practice change (Tucker et al., 2021).

Now, about Caitlyn’s case, the IOWA model helps healthcare staff to provide evidence-based treatment. Such as using telehealth to collaborate remotely with Caitlyn and her family is one of the best evidence-based practices to improve her treatment and well-being (Duff et al., 2020).

Evaluating Positive Benefits to Patient Outcomes

Evidence-based practice allows the use of current research to help nurses get up-to-date knowledge about medical procedures. This helps nurses to adopt improved treatment strategies and patient care. However, evidence-based practices also enable healthcare providers to maintain effective collaboration. Nurses can also provide support to patients to instruct them on managing various health-related problems (Duff et al., 2020).

The Care Plan’s Resources

Many online databases help healthcare providers to find relevant information they need regarding their research issues. One of the most essential and credible sources in this case is PubMed. This database is renowned for providing up-to-date, peer-reviewed literature to support research studies. Moreover, it allows healthcare providers to make the information they use in their research authentic and credible (Ossom Williamson & Minter, 2019). Another important source is CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature). It is a huge database for healthcare professionals. It provides access to numerous journals, books, and dissertations, in the nursing field. These sources can provide information on telehealth or remote collaboration (Oermann et al., 2020).  

A research study by Gajarawala & Pelkowski, titled ‘Telehealth benefits and barriers.’ was published in 2021 in the Journal for Nurse Practitioners, discussed the importance of telehealth in patient’s quality of care. Moreover, this study found that telehealth allows healthcare staff to provide improved patient care and helps patients reduce the cost of treatment (Gajarawala & Pelkowski, 2021). 

Rationale or Criteria to Determine Relevance and Usefulness

The resources used in this study are credible because they were published within the last five years, thus increasing their reliability. Additionally, peer-reviewed articles and a specific focus on the issue in discussion make these resources more credible. These evaluations confirm the credibility of the resources used. 

Interdisciplinary Collaboration Strategies, Benefits, and Challenges

You might remember a time in your life when you were facing a complex problem that made you consult with your close people to make a better-informed decision. Well, all complex problems require collaboration in healthcare complex issues too. Healthcare professionals collaborate to understand their patient’s symptoms and experiences better. It allows them to make a better-customized plan for the treatment that ensures improved patient care and well-being. In Caitlyn’s case, healthcare professionals discussed the interdisciplinary collaboration and provided every detail to Janice regarding her child’s condition. By doing so, Caitlyn gets improved care and better treatment according to her symptoms.

Remote collaboration has many benefits but it also has some challenges as well. One challenge in Caitlyn’s case is poor communication due to connectivity issues or limited functionality of tools utilized in telecommunication. Another challenge is the lack of training or knowledge of healthcare staff about telehealth and its use (Van et al., 2020). This can lead to insufficient treatment leading to serious health complications. 

Interdisciplinary Collaboration Leveraged To Improve Outcomes 

Interdisciplinary collaboration can be improved by motivating healthcare staff to learn the skill of effective communication to provide improved patient care. For this purpose, training programs and workshops can be organized for healthcare staff to evaluate the effectiveness of interprofessional collaboration (Van et al., 2020). These measures can improve healthcare facilities. 

Conclusion 

In today’s world of digital age, remote collaboration has become an essential part of improving healthcare facilities. In Caitlyn’s case, she lives far away and is unable to go to the hospital frequently. So, the healthcare team must form and provide remote collaboration with Caitlyn and her family using telehealth. This will help in providing better health quality and also reduce the cost of her treatment. Moreover, interprofessional collaboration will also be beneficial in enhancing patient care in any serious situation.

References

Donaghy, E., Atherton, H., Hammersley, V., McNeilly, H., Bikker, A., Robbins, L., Campbell, J., & McKinstry, B. (2019). Acceptability, benefits, and challenges of video consulting: A qualitative study in primary care. British Journal of General Practice, 69(686), e586–e594. https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp19x704141

Duff, J., Cullen, L., Hanrahan, K., & Steelman, V. (2020). Determinants of an evidence-based practice environment: An interpretive description. Implementation Science Communications, 1(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s43058-020-00070-0

Gajarawala, S. & Pelkowski J.,  (2021). Telehealth benefits and barriers. The Journal for  Nurse Practitioners, 17(2), 218-221 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2020.09.013. 

Howland, M., Tennant, M., Bowen, D. J., Bauer, A. M., Fortney, J. C., Pyne, J. M., Shore, J., & Cerimele, J. M. (2020). Psychiatrist and psychologist experiences with telehealth and remote collaborative care in primary care: A qualitative study. The Journal of Rural Health, 37(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/jrh.12523

Kissani, N., Lengané, Y. T. M., Patterson, V., Mesraoua, B., Dawn, E., Ozkara, C., Shears, G., Riphagen, H., Asadi-Pooya, A. A., Bogacz, A., Aarrouni, I. E., & Nair, P. P. (2020). Telemedicine in epilepsy: How can we improve care, teaching, and awareness? Epilepsy & Behavior, 103, 106854. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2019.106854

Oermann, M. H., Wrigley, J., Nicoll, L. H., Ledbetter, L. S., Carter, H., & Edie, A. H. (2020). The integrity of databases for literature searches in nursing. Advances in Nursing Science(2). https://doi.org/10.1097/ans.0000000000000349

Pilla, B., Jordan, Z., Christian, R., Kynoch, K., McInerney, P., Cooper, K., Wu, Y., Porritt, K., Lockwood, C., & Munn, Z. (2022). JBI series paper 4: The role of collaborative evidence networks in promoting and supporting evidence-based healthcare globally: Reflections from 25 years across 38 countries. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2022.04.009

Tucker, S., McNett, M., Mazurek, B., Hanrahan, K., Hunter, S. C., Kim, B., Cullen, L., & Kitson, A. (2021). Implementation science: Application of evidence‐based practice models to improve healthcare quality. Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing, 18(2), 76–84. https://doi.org/10.1111/wvn.12495

Van, A., MacLeod, M., Veen, J., Van de Ven, A., Baalen, S., Klaassen, R., & Boon, M. (2020). Interdisciplinary engineering education: A review of vision, teaching, and support. Journal of Engineering Education, 109(3), 508–555. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20347

Weinberg, M., Danoff, J. R., & Scuderi, G. R. (2023). Remote patient monitoring following total joint arthroplasty. Orthopedic Clinics of North America. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocl.2022.11.002