I believe that healthcare is a teamsport. In order for patients to get the best care possible, we need multi-disciplinary experts to work together to provide patient-centered, family-oriented care.

We all know about teams. A team is a group of people who work together on an ongoing basis to accomplish a common goal. However, truth be told, modern healthcare is so complex with too many moving parts and so most care is provided within the framework of teaming. So what is  “teaming”?

Teaming is “teamwork on the fly”. It involves coordinating and collaborating without the benefit of stable team structures. A perfect example of teaming is when a clinician calls for a medical interpreter to help with a clinical encounter. In all likelihood, the clinician has never met the medical interpreter before. They both walk into the patient’s room together and proceed to provide care to the patient and family, often across the language barrier and overcoming health literacy issues. It is vital that both the clinician and the medical interpreter can quickly align and work cohesively through the teaming instance. Watch the video to find out more.
VJ Periyakoil, MD, Stanford University School of Medicine.

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How can we make the MI feel more included in the clinical encounter?

Lot of times, the medical interpreter is walking into a sensitive situation and they can be caught off guard and feel disconnected from the encounter.

So, how should we brief them about the context so they can be better prepared? More importantly, are their specific challenges the MI can help with? For e.g. how to handle the loving but forceful daughter who will not let the patient (her mother) have a voice in her care?

VJ Periyakoil, MD, Stanford University School of Medicine.

Tweet to us: @palliator