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Enhancing Collaborative Patient Care and Medication Management with Point of Care Testing: Professor Oparah Lectures Healthcare Professionals, Others
Global Masters Institute (G.M.I), in partnership with the Skill Development Council Canada, continues to empower healthcare professionals through education and capacity building through its Point of Care Testing Certification Programme.
Professor Azuka C. Oparah, a distinguished faculty member of GMI and the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Benin, led an expert session where he emphasised the need to entrench collaborative model of healthcare delivery in Nigeria.
Professor Oparah delved into the value of collaborative care, describing the medication therapy management process and how it can be enhanced through the integration of Point of Care Testing.
He emphasised a healthcare delivery model that emphasises outcomes-based payment, where healthcare providers are compensated based on patient health outcomes, thus highlighting the need to improve healthcare value.
The session highlighted the significance of interprofessional collaboration in healthcare. Professor Oparah stressed that in today’s global healthcare landscape, health workers must not only be professionals but also interprofessional. Interprofessional collaboration encourages knowledge sharing, skills sharing, and experience sharing, ultimately enhancing patient care.
The stages of interprofessional collaboration were discussed, emphasising professional awareness, recognition, exploration, trial, relationship expansion, and a commitment to collaborative working relationships. This approach optimises patient care outcomes, including clinical outcomes (e.g., disease cure, symptom reduction), humanistic outcomes (e.g., patient satisfaction, quality of life), and economic outcomes (e.g., cost-effectiveness, length of stay).
Medication Therapy Management in the community involves initiating professional relationships, gathering information from patient complaints and symptoms, conducting assessments, and utilising Point of Care Testing for data collection, planning, implementation, and follow-up.
The session also shed light on the significance of Point of Care Testing, highlighting its role in providing evidence for diagnosing problems and evaluating intervention effectiveness. As technology advances, more laboratory tests become available at the point of care, enabling quick decision-making and maximizing patient outcomes.
To successfully incorporate Point of Care Testing into practice, healthcare practitioners must possess the knowledge, skills, attitude, and consistency necessary for effective implementation. This expert session, attended by over 30 healthcare practitioners, including doctors, pharmacists, and laboratory scientists, underscored the importance of staying updated on evolving healthcare practices.