What Do They Mean?
Collaboration and cooperation; what exactly do these words mean? How do they help our industry and why should we make the effort? According to Webster’s dictionary collaboration means “the action of working with someone to produce or create something.” Cooperation means “the process of working together to the same end.”
Both, collaboration and cooperation, are necessary to bring successful and lasting changes when working with each other in our industry.
Better Outcomes
Non-medical home care can be a cornerstone partner in bringing better outcomes to seniors and their families through collaboration and cooperation. A change in condition is usually first observed through activities of daily living. We observe changes in a client sometimes before family or physicians because the caregiver helps with these activities. When we work with a team of healthcare partners, we can notify them in regard to the area of concern. This can prevent a decline in a person’s condition, and/or hospital admission.
Improved health care collaboration has been cited as a key strategy for health care reform. Collaboration in health care has been shown to improve patient outcomes. We are all partners in a business that serves human beings. There is proof that when we build relationships with our partners, it has a positive impact on everyone. This allows us to ensure our clients are receiving the care necessary to have a safe and healthy home environment.
Working Together
Through collaboration and cooperation, we open a line of communication that we don’t have when we all work separately. Every partner we work with as a Homecare company says this is the most important factor that ensures we are patient-focused and successful in the care we each provide.
According to an article in the AMA Journal of Ethics titled Teamwork In Healthcare, “Teams offer the promise to improve clinical care because they can aggregate, modify, combine, and apply a greater amount and variety of knowledge in order to make decisions, solve problems, generate ideas, and execute task more effectively and efficiently than any individual working alone.”
Collaboration and cooperation between hospitals, home health, physicians, and home care agencies can create better health and quality of life that allows our seniors to continue to age in place.