Diane Fox
Diane Porretta Fox ([email protected])is Professor of Nursing, School of Nursing and former 2017 IPE Faculty Scholar. Dr. Fox was the (2018) creator of the course NURS 407-Introduction to Interprofessional Education in healthcare to promote interprofessional competency development. Interprofessional healthcare delivery and communication as they exist currently in practice is examined. Acknowledging the real-life professional experiences of the student interactions with inter and intra professionals in healthcare are presented to improve the application of collaboration in healthcare practices. Challenges to interprofessional optimum practices and the positive outcomes of interprofessional healthcare for patient care are discussed.
How and why did you get involved?
I became involved with IPE as a seasoned registered nurse with a rich background as also a registered respiratory therapist from many years at Michigan Medicine working in Intensive Care Units, Survival Flight team member for neonatal and congenital heart pediatric transports, and also as member of the part-time Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Team (ECMO) team for all age groups at Michigan Medicine. This extensive healthcare teamwork provided me with a rich background identifying the improved healthcare outcomes of patients when the teams working efficiently and positively for optimum patient outcomes. I would like to give Dr. Robert Bartlett, MD credit for how to make teamwork and collaboration work in the hospital setting at Michigan Medicine. (Dr. Bartlett was the inventor of ECMO and I witnessed the successful patient outcomes from ECMO—as well as his interprofessional team leading practices). His ECMO team was comprised of ½ Registered Nurses (RNs) and ½ Respiratory Therapists (RTs). The benefits of teamwork and collaboration advanced ECMO!