Blog Viewer

Over the last few blog posts, we have reviewed the benefits and best practices of building interprofessional relationships. Now we will explore a few practical steps you can take today to fuel your interprofessional relationship skills.

1. Be passionate
   1. You need to enjoy what you are doing to bring expertise to the team. If you are disinterested in a certain sector of pharmacy, you might be less likely to have an adequate knowledge base. Additionally, your team may pick up on the cues that you are less than thrilled to be a wealth of knowledge for that particular area.  When you are passionate about what you are working on, you are more likely to do research, not become stagnant, and have a robust drive to further patient care.
2. Be patient
   1. Building strong working relationships takes time. If you start s a new role in a consistent location every day during the work week, it can take upwards of 9-12 months for you to feel comfortable in that position and for you and your team to develop a good working relationship.  If you don’t have the luxury of working in the same position every day, this timeline may be extended.  These relationships are not built overnight.
   2. It will take time to determine with whom to build your relationships. There may be ten people on a team, but one or two of them may be the linchpin that are willing to guide you to develop your practice to align with the needs of the entire team.  It will take time to decipher the key team players.
3. Be prepared
   1. One of the foundations for building a team is listening to each other. Invest time learning your team members’ passions and goals. Then try to incorporate those goals in your plans and actions. If you are heading in a direction that your team doesn’t deem valuable, you may seem disinterested or distracted.
   2. Just like a good friendship, it will take time to get into a groove where you are supporting each other well. Be willing to try different avenues of working with your team and don’t get discouraged when one approach doesn’t work.  Try, try again!
4. Be present
   1. Be physically visible if at all possible. The more they see your smiling face, the more they will utilize your skills and work with you to further patient care. If you are in your office, out of sight, you are less likely to be brought into important conversations.
   2. If you can’t be physically present on a consistent basis, consider setting up regular meetings with key team members so they know how to get a hold of you and when the best times are for consultations. Consider posting your hours and contact information in plain sight.