PROFESSIONAL INTEGRATION AS A TOOL FOR IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF MEDICAL CARE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11603/1681-2786.2025.2.15505Keywords:
patient-centeredness; team; communication; coordination; interprofessional collaboration.Abstract
Purpose: to investigate integration technologies in the activities of healthcare workers in a multidisciplinary healthcare institution. Materials and methods: the research materials were questionnaires filled out by respondents with answers to open questions and were supplemented with explanations from respondents as notes that the interviewer made during the survey. The questionnaire questions were formed on the basis of standardized international questionnaires. Methods: sociological (semi-structured in-depth interviews with 37 healthcare workers); analysis, generalization and triangulation of data. The State Institution of Science “Center of innovative healthcare technologies” State Administrative Department (SIS “CIHCT” SAD) was as the research base. This is a multidisciplinary healthcare institution that provides primary and specialized medical care. Results: It was found that patient orientation, communication, coordination, teamwork, transferring patients to another level of medical care without delay, teaching patients to self-monitor their clinical condition, using information systems, medical care standards and patient clinical routes, and continuous professional development of employees are actively used in SIS “CIHCT” SAD. At the same time, general practitioners and nurses are limited in certain functions, which leads to the extension of the patient’s clinical route; specialist doctors do not always agree on a treatment plan with the patient; remote consultation of patients is carried out by phone, without information support doctor; exchange of knowledge, experience, information on severe and atypical cases of diseases between primary and specialized medical care doctors is not established. External communications are limited: doctors do not have interprofessional contacts with colleagues from other healthcare institutions; discharges from hospitals are received late or not at all; there are no end-to-end information systems; A team approach between doctors from different institutions is not practiced. Conclusions. The identified problems both within the multidisciplinary healthcare institution and externally require management decisions by the heads of healthcare institutions and territorial healthcare management bodies aimed at improving professional integration.
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