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Collaborative Practice

Collaborative Practice
Collaborative Practice
Collaboration is defined by Webster (1988) as working together in some undertaking. The collaboration of many healthcare disciplines is essential to meet the needs of patients in today’s medical arena. As a neonatal intensive care nurse, I see on a daily basis how vital it is for these individual disciplines to link together around a common subject, the patient. This paper will showcase collaborative practice by identifying the healthcare and social services groups which participated, describe the most common situations in which collaborative care is provided, differentiate between nursing diagnoses and collaborative problems, and identify potential barriers to successful collaboration as I present a case from my own experience, Crissalyn.
Case Presentation
Crissalyn was a twenty-four week gestation, multiple birth with many complications. She was delivered via emergency cesarean section due to fetal distress secondary to maternal hypertension. She and her twin sister were admitted to our unit for supportive care following resuscitation immediately after delivery. Crissalyn was intubated and placed on mechanical ventilation. She required medications to increase her heart rate and maintain her blood pressure. Because she was so small, only four hundred twenty on grams, she had great difficulty maintaining her body temperature. She developed many complications that premature infants experience from respiratory distress syndrome and intraventricular hemorrhage to patent ductus arterious and

Collaborative Practice
necrotizing enterocolitis. Needless to say, Crissalyn’s care was complicated and often her condition went from bad to worse.
Collaborative Process
Initial collaboration. In Crissalyn’s case, I would begin the collaboration practice description with the disciplines at the bedside upon her delivery. These were nursing, respiratory care, and the neonatologist, as well as the obstetrician....