Running head: ESSENTIAL VI 1

Essential VI: Interprofessional Communication and Collaboration for

Improving Patient Health Outcomes

Hai-Duong Nguyen

Frostburg State University

ESSENTIAL VI 2

This paper will focus on Essential VI: Interprofessional Communication and

Collaboration for Improving Patient Health Outcomes from the American Association of

Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Baccalaureate Essentials document as it relates to my thesis from

my paper Analysis of Health Promotion and Cultural Diversity within the Nursing Practice by

showing that I have an understanding of this framework as well as a mastery of it based on my

thesis.

Effective collaboration amongst nurses implies effective interprofessional communication

and is imperative to providing patient-centered care (AACN, 2008, p. 23). It is also a complex

dynamic that is grounded in complementary healthcare professional roles and is contingent upon

its memberhealthcare professionalsrealizing this complexity and using this understanding to

advance patient care (AACN, 2008, p. 23). Yet effective interprofessional communication itself

implies a prerequisitean effective interprofessional education, which is defined by AACN

Baccalaureate Essential as interactivities educational activities involving two or more

professions that foster collaboration to improve patient care (AACN, 2008, p. 23). This is due

to the fact that an interprofessional education enables nurses to enter the workplace with

standards of competency and communication by preparing the graduate nurse with the

knowledge of the definition of shared goals clear role expectations of members a flexible

decision making process and the establishment of open communication patterns and leadership

(AACN, 2008, p. 23).

This previous paragraph established that interprofessional communication and education is a

necessary component of patient-centered care. We can see that an attunement to health

promotion and cultural sensitivity and diversity is also important within the scope of patient-

centered care, and this attunement must be always be demonstrated when it comes to

interprofessional communication in order to provide excellent health care. My emphasis on

ESSENTIAL VI 3

health promotion and cultural diversity shows mastery of the concepts of interprofessional

communication and collaboration as these aforementioned components cannot exist without a

proper foundation of interprofessional communication and collaboration. In other words,

embedded within the emphasis on health promotion is the collaboration between healthcare

professionals towards a uniform goal that is, for healthcare providers to encourage and teach

patients and the public in health promotion and strategies towards health promotion. Embedded

within the emphasis on cultural diversity is the need for health care professionals to effectively

communicatewhether between one another or with patientswithout bias and in a culturally

sensitive manner as this is a more effective, and perhaps shorter route to health promotion. For

example, the collaboration between nurses and other healthcare workers when a patient does not

speak English well is especially important in the areas of diagnosis, reducing hospital stay,

and/or acquiring financial aid, etc.

ESSENTIAL VI 4

References

Essential VI: Interprofessional Communication and Collaboration for Improving Patient Health

Outcomes (2008). In The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional

Nursing Practice. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Colleges of Nursing.