Interprofessional Collaboration

    For our Leadership II class, we were given an assignment to pick a topic and be able to present it to the upcoming first-year OT students. I was excited to pick a topic about interprofessional collaboration since this is a topic I am pretty passionate about. Coming from working as a PT tech for 2 years and my fieldwork experience, I have always understood how important it is to network among different professions in the medical field. I love being able to network with different professions and learning more about what they have to offer that OT might not. A plus side to that is being able to advocate for this profession since a lot of people have no idea what OT is. I wanted to speak on this to the upcoming class to emphasize the importance of interprofessional collaboration and how vital it is to the client-centered care we promise to give. A client's therapy progression correlates to how they are treated by a team of healthcare professionals. If the team collaborates well and can understand one another, they can integrate that with the care they give thier clients. I wanted to hit hard on the "why" this topic is important and what actions to take as students here at UTHSC. 

    I wanted to address 2 learning objectives within this presentation:

Learning Objective 1: Recognize the difference between Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy.

Learning Objective 2: Identify the importance of interprofessional networking and collaboration within the working field. 

Here's an outline of all I discussed in my presentation!

1. What is interprofessional collaboration?
2 or more professions come together to work on one goal: treating their clients. Being able to collaborate with other professionals gives you the opportunity to understand the different backgrounds of others and embrace the values and expertise of other healthcare professionals.

2. Who do we work with?
Knowing there are different settings OT's work in and how the setting defines who we work with as a team. The main team we truly work with is the Rehabilitative team which consists of OT, PT, and ST (speech therapy). 

3. What can OT's bring to the table that others cannot?
We as OT's bring the skills necessary to make the team function effectively and promote our education for effective teamwork in treating clients as a whole. This can mean emphasizing our values in a holistic approach, client-centered interventions, increasing quality of life, teaching others the use of adaptive equipment, and expanding our creativity. 

4. Why is interprofessional collaboration important?
Teamwork makes the dream work! Acknowledging the roles of others and having mutual trust with one another leads to providing quality and safe treatment for clients to come. 

5. OT vs PT
Let's put it this way. PT can help you walk out of a room, but OT will help you put your pants on before you leave the room. OT focuses on what goes on from the waist up. We look at all aspects of mental health, fine motor skills, and what goes on with the upper extremity. PT definitely does a bit of that also, but mostly looks at what is going on waist down such as gross motor skills and lower extremity. OT's want to address the important skills necessary to execute daily occupations whereas PT will focus on restoring mobility and promoting functional independence.

6. Actions to take as a student 
Attend interprofessional education events and truly play an active role. Get to know the members of your group and understand who they are as a person and the profession they are pursuing. Being able to educate them on OT will help our profession in the future as they can refer clients to OT instead of misleading them somewhere else. 

I truly enjoyed working on this project and even learned a bit more about how important interprofessional collaboration is. I want to continue to advocate on the importance of networking and being able to advocate for our profession. I would be lying if I said everyone I talk to knows what OT is. I want to create a change to where OT is seen normally as PT and people understand the difference of it. I hope this presentation initiates a small step towards change!