Family-Professional Collaboration in Healthcare

Subject: Healthcare Research
Pages: 2
Words: 501
Reading time:
2 min
Study level: College

Introduction

In order to achieve the positive outcomes of medical interventions and implement all the therapeutic tasks efficiently, it is required to ensure high-quality interaction among caregivers and families. Such contacts contribute to complete understanding between two parties and allow obtaining the most accurate picture of a particular health problem. As the key components of valuable family-professional collaboration, such aspects as cultural responsiveness, effective communication, and ongoing support and information exchange will be addressed. All these factors are interrelated and form a holistic environment for productive interaction.

Description of Components

Each of the considered aspects of family-professional collaboration has its own unique features and strengths. According to Gargiulo and Kilgo, cultural responsiveness involves the analysis of various factors, including religion, language, gender, and other ones (68). Based on this information, medical professionals can obtain comprehensive data regarding their patients from the standpoint of cultural background.

Effective communication, as Gargiulo and Kilgo note, may be divided into verbal and non-verbal, and both these forms are successfully applied to interactions with children and adults (70). Finally, ongoing support and information exchange contributes to the constant contact of caregivers with families, enables all stakeholders to have valuable knowledge, and “creates opportunities for enrichment and learning from one another” (Gargiulo and Kilgo 78). Therefore, each of the considered components performs a significant function in the process of family-professional collaboration.

Fostering Positive Interaction Through the Components of Collaboration

Due to cultural responsiveness, the likelihood of ethical contradictions is excluded. Effective communication allows establishing contact among all stakeholders, and both adults and children benefit from this interaction. The role of support and sharing information is also significant since neither family members nor caregivers have any questions. Accordingly, the promotion of the application of the strategies considered in practice is an essential task.

Stakeholders should be aware of all the nuances to make their contact productive. In many cases, as Gargiulo and Kilgo remark, “family’s concerns and priorities” are unique; therefore, healthcare workers are to take into account the individual characteristics of patients (114). Communication and periodic consultations may be carried out differently, for example, by means of e-mails or calls. Any type of collaboration improves medical interventions and promotes speedy recovery.

I had the experience of valuable interaction with my friends when they turned to me for help. Their child had dangerous symptoms of poisoning, and since that I knew about their recent return from vacation, it was easier for me to draw a conclusion about intoxication with exotic products brought from abroad. This experience proves that the availability of information contributes to a rapid and necessary intervention and minimizes threats.

Conclusion

The complexity of the considered components of family-professional collaboration allows creating a favorable environment for treatment and contributes to effective interventions. Cultural responsiveness, effective communication, and ongoing support and information exchange help to increase the outcomes of all the procedures since both sides are aware of the features of a particular therapeutic plan. Therefore, promoting these strategies in the healthcare sector is an important task.

Work Cited

Gargiulo, Richard M., and Jennifer L. Kilgo. An Introduction to Young Children with Special Needs: Birth Through Age Eight. 4th ed., Cengage Learning, 2013.