Capella 4005 Assessment 2
Capella 4005 Assessment 2
Student Name
Capella University
NURS-FPX4005 Nursing Leadership: Focusing on People, Processes, and Organizations
Prof. Name
Date
Interview Summary
An interview was held with the nurse manager, Sarah Jones, from an emergency department (ED) at Riverview Medical Center, a 476-bed intensive care regional hospital. Sarah has over four years of professional expertise as a nurse manager, responsible for unit operations, staff oversight, patient treatment plans, and enforcing medical compliance regulations. One important concern she raised was inadequate patient handoff due to communication breakdowns during shift changes and between nursing personnel and clinicians in the ED during critical care. Previously, the medical center addressed this issue by setting up an Electronic Health Record (EHR) with integrated handoff features to increase communication and streamline the patient handoff procedure. However, it did not work due to the absence of defined protocols.
Staff communication training was conducted; however, the ongoing effectiveness of these changes proved challenging due to staff non-adherence. During the interview, Sarah stated that the medical center has a robust collaboration culture; yet, units work in segregation. She emphasized the importance of using standard communication tools such as SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation) or a multidisciplinary handoff tool to ensure concise, clear, and complete patient data flow. Sule et al. (2022) claimed that a multidisciplinary handoff tool will improve care team communication and collaboration by breaking down the present “siloed” handoff strategy. Increased Interprofessional cooperation between nurses and doctors is vital to improve patient outcomes through effective patient handoff.
Capella 4005 Assessment 2
A semi-structured interview style was utilized, which allowed for open-ended debate while guaranteeing the key subjects were discussed. For instance, the respondent was asked about, “How has the delay in patient handoff influenced patient care in ED?” or “What issues have you experienced in fostering collaboration among the interprofessional team?” These questions provided specific insights into real-world issues at work. She claimed that ineffective patient handoff resulted in serious effects, such as adverse occurrences and care delay due to poor communication. These conditions had a detrimental impact on patient treatment efficiency.
Issue Identification
The major problem revealed during the interview was improper patient handoff during critical care due to a communication gap at Riverview Medical Center. Communication issues during handoffs cause avoidable negative incidents in healthcare due to information omission (Sule et al., 2020). An interdisciplinary strategy is crucial to address this issue. It enables various care professionals to collaborate and take ownership of improving interaction to make patient handover effective, boosting patient results. Nurses’ collaboration with doctors and pharmacists makes effective patient care possible through extensive patient information exchange during handoff.
Adopting a multidisciplinary handoff tool will help the team to boost communication and collaboration during handoff (Sule et al., 2020). Tools like SBAR successfully structure patient information communication among doctors and nurses. Coolen et al. (2020) stated that deploying the SBAR promotes patient security, lowers fatalities, and adverse incidents caused by communication failures. I-PASS and checklists improve shift hand-off, ensuring accurate patient information and reducing errors (Baluyot et al., 2022). Fostering a cooperative setting and improved communication at Riverview Center boosts care level via efficient handoffs.
Change Theories That Could Lead to an Interdisciplinary Solution
Managing organizational transformation through Lewin’s Change Theory (CMT) offers a structured framework and direction for executing change. It entails three steps: Unfreezing, transforming, and refreezing (Baluyot et al., 2022). This theory can assist in building an integrated approach since it specifies the medical center’s serial transformation procedure and is best suited to bridging the gap in communication during handoff at Riverview Medical Center. In the unfreezing step, leadership can engage staff to recognize the need for enhanced communication practices by implementing tools such as SBAR, I-PASS, and a coordinated strategy for effective patient handover. In the transition step, multidisciplinary solutions such as interdisciplinary communication protocols (e.g., SBAR, I-PASS), checklists are employed.
The refreezing step focuses on enforcing novel methods of communication with constant tracking, input, and leadership guidance. The study by Baluyot et al. (2022) is credible as it recognized Lewin CMT’s efficacy in boosting communication. CMT provided a better understanding of how to develop a plan for implementation and address change resistance. The resource’s legitimacy is established, highlighting the applicability of this theory in settings through a quality improvement analysis to enhance hand-off communication by adopting a standard hand-off tool.
Leadership Strategies That Could Lead to an Interdisciplinary Solution
Addressing the poor patient handoff issue caused by a communication gap, a successful leadership technique such as Transformational Leadership (TL) can be used. The TL is an important method for influencing transformation in healthcare. TL can incentivize nurses and doctors to work together to reduce adverse events and treatment delays caused by poor patient handoff, resulting in an integrated solution. Hamdan et al. (2024) stated that TL promotes security awareness and inspires nurses, which boosts their safety behaviors, including handover.
TL motivates care staff to disclose errors, maintain open communication, learn from negative occurrences, and participate in measures that improve patient security. They lay out a clear strategy for optimizing handoff methods, assigning duties to team members, and fostering a climate of trust and collaboration. TL drives and empowers employees to interact and form relationships to pursue a common objective, resulting in an environment for problem-solving to boost results (Ystaas et al., 2023). Hamdan et al.’s (2024) resource is trustworthy and relevant since it validates the role of TL in promoting patient safety by encouraging open communication to promote nursing practices for handover, resulting in better patient security.
Collaboration Approach for Interdisciplinary Teams
Interdisciplinary cooperation is essential for managing inadequate patient handoff due to insufficient communication within the healthcare team. Employing the TeamSTEPPS model helps to improve engagement and teamwork. According to Hassan et al. (2024), TeamSTEPPS promotes proven cooperation strategies developed specifically for health care environments. It comprises boosting communication, clarifying team tasks, and increasing mutual assistance for efficient teamwork. Adopting TL also supports collaboration in addressing the handoff issue. TL lays out a clear strategy for improving handoff methods, assigning responsibility to team members, and fostering a climate of trust and collaboration (Hamdan et al., 2024).
Executing a Multidisciplinary teamwork (MDT) approach improves team collaboration. Effective teamwork during handovers improves patient safety, care coordination, and efficient care provision by fostering open communication, shared choices, and duties among care team (Gaing et al., 2024). Finally, executing digital handover systems promotes speedy interdisciplinary sharing of patient data that is immediately accessible to all healthcare providers, improving communication. It improves collaboration by allowing approved healthcare personnel, including nurses and caregivers, to submit feedback on a patient based on their knowledge, hence increasing outcomes (Lazzari, 2024). Adopting the TeamSTEPPS is an excellent way to promote cooperation. The study by Hassan et al. (2022) is credible since it offers collaborative strategies to improve medical care and handle patient handoff and communication concerns.
Conclusion
Managing patient handoff-related concerns and maintaining adequate communication among the care team are crucial to avoid negative incidents and rapid care provision. Adopting tools like I-PASS, SBAR, and handoff checklists boosts Interprofessional communication and handover practices, promoting patient safety. Effective collaboration models like TeamSTEPPS boost teamwork for improving practices, while TL and Lewin CMT assist in addressing change resistance and effective execution of improved practices.
References
Baluyot, A., McNeill, C., & Wiers, S. (2022). Improving communication from hospital to skilled nursing facility through standardized hand-off: A quality improvement project. Patient Safety, 4(4), 18-25. https://doi.org/10.33940/med/2022.12.2
Coolen, E., Engbers, R., Draaisma, J., Heinen, M., & Fluit, C. (2020). The use of SBAR as a structured communication tool in the pediatric non-acute care setting: bridge or barrier for interprofessional collaboration?. Journal of interprofessional care, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2020.1816936
Gaing, S., Shirley, A., Abdullah, B. F., & Dioso, R. I. (2024). Enhancing teamwork through effective handover practices among nurses in elder care setting. The Malaysian Journal of Nursing (MJN), 15(4), 100-108. https://doi.org/10.31674/MJN.2024.V15104.012
Hamdan, M., Jaaffar, A. H., Khraisat, O., Issa, M. R., & Jarrar, M. T. (2024). The association of transformational leadership on safety practices among nurses: The mediating role of patient safety culture. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 17, 1687-1700. https://doi.org/10.2147/RMHP.S458505
Hassan, A. E., Mohammed, F. A., Zakaria, A. M., & Ibrahim, I. A. (2024). Evaluating the effect of teamstepps on teamwork perceptions and patient safety culture among newly graduated nurses. BioMed Central Nursing, 23(1), 170. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-024-01850-y
Capella 4005 Assessment 2
Lazzari, C. (2024). Implementing the verbal and electronic handover in general and psychiatric nursing using the introduction, situation, background, assessment, and recommendation framework: A systematic review. Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research, 29(1), 23–32. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijnmr.ijnmr_24_23
Sule, A. A., Caputo, D., Gohal, J., & Dascenzo, D. (2020). Desirable features of an interdisciplinary handoff. Journal of Medical Internet Research Nursing, 3(1), e18914. https://doi.org/10.2196/18914
Ystaas, L. M. K., Nikitara, M., Ghobrial, S., Latzourakis, E., Polychronis, G., & Constantinou, C. S. (2023). The impact of transformational leadership in the nursing work environment and patients’ outcomes: A systematic review. Nursing Reports, 13(3), 1271-1290. https://doi.org/10.3390/nursrep13030108