The Importance of Team Work to Provide The Best Patient Outcome

By Margarita Vallin, RDN

As dietitians it is our job to ensure that the people we serve maintain good nutritional status in order to maintain quality of life. To accomplish this, dietitians must work together with other health professionals such as dietary managers, nurses, speech therapists, pharmacists, occupational therapists, and doctors. Together we make up what is known as the interdisciplinary team, and working as a team is highly important to ensure the best treatment course.

The above diagram reflects the interdisciplinary team with the patient in the center, ensuring the prescribed treatment plan is patient centered.

Dietitian’s receive consultations for wounds, inadequate intake, tube feeding recommendations, and so much more. These consults and/or referrals can come from a speech therapist, registered nurses, social workers and doctor’s. Other times dietitians are the ones who seek out a consult, such as a safe swallow study from the speech therapist. Pharmacy review, for suspected drug nutrient interactions. A social worker may be contacted for reported abuse, and those are just a few examples.

It is often so easy to overshadow the importance of your healthcare associates, and hyper focused on what we as dietitians can do for the patient.

However, have we stopped to think about how our nutrition interventions and recommendations are implemented?

When a dietitian conducts a nutrition assessment, and finds a nutrition related problem, they must communicate their recommendations with nursing, dietary managers, and doctors.

In a skilled nursing facility, if a dietitian wanted to make a simple diet change, the dietitian would first have to contact nursing. Who would require MD approval prior to changing is on the EMR system. Then nursing would notify the dietary manager, and implement diet changes accordingly. In the kitchen, food service workers would ensure they are serving the recommended diet. When it would be time to serve the patient their food, the CNA in charge of passing out the meal tray, would ensure the diet provided matches the diet order.

Can you see the complexity and teamwork required just making one simple diet change? So many people are responsible for achieving that goal including food service workers, CNA’s, Registered Nurses, Dietary Managers, Dietitians, and Doctors.

Therefore working as a team, and effectively communicating the treatment plan for a patient is crucial in ensuring best patient outcomes.