Week 7 Discussion Topic: Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN)

Read the “Overview” of the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) project at the following website: http://www.qsen.org/overview.php. Then view the video titled “Introduction to the QSEN Competencies” at the following website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT7UbeTOo1w If any of the links are broken, do a search for the information on your own.
As you end your participation in this course focused on nursing leadership and management, define one “pearl of wisdom” or “light bulb moment” you had when reading this information and/or viewing the video. You are only required to do an initial post, but may also respond to a classmate if you choose to do so. 2 references peer reviewed articles plus the videos

SOLUTION

Collaboration and Teamwork in Healthcare

While watching the video, I came across the idea that no matter how professional or experienced an individual is, he/she can never be reliable as a team (Altmiller, 2017). I realized that while as a medical practitioner I can consider myself reliable, effective, experienced or even professional, working in a collaborative manner with others make me more effective and reliable. Medical practitioners can view their experience as the only thing that matter in offering quality healthcare but working together with family, patient and other healthcare professionals provide a safety net for individual practitioners while improving the quality of healthcare. Offering healthcare is not a profit-oriented activity which suggests that[cmppp_restricted] however much time it may take to consult family members or other professionals; the end result is worth the time.

As argued by Mao & Woolley (2016), while there is an increased overreliance on teamwork in healthcare, medical errors remain the third most cause of death with teamwork failures accounting for more than 70% of the serious errors. Teams are considered more effective in that they have the capacity to modify, aggregate, combine and apply a variety of skills in generating ideas, making decisions and executing tasks.  Ideally, a multidisciplinary team of providers can work collaboratively develop care plans, provide appropriate follow-up, determine diagnoses, conduct procedures and offer quality healthcare. It is, however, disheartening to note that teamwork failures are a major source of medical errors. One wonders how a team of professionals working together can make serious errors. But the answer is quite elaborate and clear in that the problem is a failure in teamwork. While collaboration is significant, its failure is devastating.

But how does teamwork in healthcare fail? There are several factors that contribute to the failure of teamwork in healthcare. One of the major barriers to collaboration in healthcare is communication. Within a team, members can have different goals, interests, styles, experiences and expectations and these differences can make communication different leading to conflicts (Morley & Cashell, 2017). Conflicts in healthcare can be disastrous in that a single mistake can be fatal to the patient. The situation is worse when the team has members with different authority, salary and prestige in that these factors make it hard to negotiate for power arrangements within the team. It is upon team leaders to ensure that teams operate smoothly and conflicts are handled effectively which comes backs to communication. The team should develop efficient but effective communication strategies to avoid conflicts.

Another major hindrance to collaboration in healthcare is psychological determinants. As argued by Morley & Cashell (2017), a crucial component of collaboration is human interactions. The psychological determinants of collaboration include opportunity, ability and willingness. The willingness to collaborate can be affected by education, experience, personal maturity and group cohesion. The ability can be affected by collaborative skills and language. When individuals in the group focus on their own ability, then collaboration is affected. Members should focus on team tasks through shared experiences, goals, power relationships and knowledge. Psychologically, professional teams have distinct culture formed by their training, specialization, professional identity and roles. These can create roles boundaries and power differences resulting in conflicts within the team. The fact that the healthcare environment is highly professionalized affect the interactions within the teams and hinder the providence to providing high quality healthcare.

References

Altmiller, G. (2017). Introduction to the QSEN Competencies [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT7UbeTOo1w

Mao, A. T., & Woolley, A. W. (2016). Teamwork in health care: Maximizing collective intelligence via inclusive collaboration and open communication. AMA journal of ethics, 18(9), 933-940.

Morley, L., & Cashell, A. (2017). Collaboration in health care. Journal of medical imaging and radiation sciences, 48(2), 207-216.  [/cmppp_restricted]