Interprofessional Practice Project
Describe the importance of perceiving a dental hygiene as a “profession” vs. an “occupation”
It is important to perceive a DH as a “profession” as being a DH requires specific training and education about oral health. We also belong to a professional body, where only the DH’s (the professionals” can carry out specific acts whereas someone without the education cannot. An occupation is thought of more as something you do to earn a living.
Define what “Interprofessional Practice” is, describe how you imagine this collaborative practice could be important in dental hygiene practice.
Interprofessional practice is a shared responsibility and collaboration among the other HCP’s in the patients care to receive the best results for the patient. This is a collaborative approach by many different HCP such as doctors, and HCP’s in the dental field. This is important in a DH’s practice because the mouth tells a lot about the overall health of an individual and as a DH you see the client more than a doctor would.
Identify a couple of interprofessional teams/settings you can imagine the dental hygienist could be a part of.
There are many different workplace settings that a dental hygienist could be a part of since there’s a variety of options. A couple interprofessional teams/setting a dental hygienist could be a part of is working in a long care facilities, to work with nurses and to monitor residents’ oral health with their dentures and make referrals. Another setting could be providing information to students by preparing a presentation to demonstrate to them the important of their oral health. There are thousands of more interprofessional team/settings out there for dental hygienists
Describe the importance of at least two key elements of collaboration (slides 17 & 18 in the power point – you may refer to examples you identified in the video)
An important element of collaboration is communication. It is very significant to both the dental hygienist and the client. The client benefits in many different way if the dental hygienist has good communication skills such as feeling comfortable in the office, understanding their oral health, understanding how to improve their oral health. The dental hygienist benefits from communication from the client by it giving them the ability to make the best care plan possible for the client including many factors about the client.
Cooperation is another very important element of collaboration that is shared by both the client and dental hygienist. In order for the client to learn from the dental hygienist, they have to be open to ideas, and trying new things. Such as changing a behaviour. The dental hygienist also needs to be cooperative with the client such as understanding their limits, and trying to compromise shared ideas or differences with the clients so it is a balanced collaboration, not one person trying to overrule the other.
List and define the stages of team development and provide one example you can recall from past teamwork to illustrate understanding of one of these stages
There are four stages of team development; forming, storming, norming, and performing. Forming is where most team members are positive, they’re not sure what work the team can do. Storming is moving the team to the next level by pushing against each other boundaries. Many teams can fail here, each person of the team may have different working skills, therefore everyone may but heads in decision making. Norming is the stage where team members can resolve their differences and help one another by providing feedback. Performing is the stage when all the hard work achieves the teams goal. One of these examples I can recall from past team work is the storming stage, it’s an awkward stage because sometimes you know the people well in your group but you’re all set in your own ways. It makes it difficult to agree on things sometimes.
Identify which “quality” of teamwork (see the “Teamwork Qualities” document in Week 12 course content on Brightspace you think is most important to demonstrate (if working in a group to complete this assignment, list top 2 or 3 qualities)
The top 2 qualities for our group would be clear communication as you need to be able to have clear and effective communication for teamwork. Without demonstrating clear communication, it makes it extremely hard to work in a team. The next important quality would be problem solving. When working in a team you need to be ready to problem solve and overcome an obstacle quickly, especially in health care. Being able to problem solve efficiently without fighting or making it a long process is essential in team work.