NURS FPX 4010 Assessment 2 Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification

Name

Capella university

NURS FPX 4010 Leading in Intrprof Practice

Prof. Name

Date

Interview Summary  

I am a registered nurse in my healthcare organization, Tampa General Hospital. Lately, I sat with my head nurse and conducted an interview on prevailing healthcare issues, which requires an interdisciplinary approach. Additionally, I used probing techniques to delve into detailed matters and seek clarification on ambiguous points. The head nurse informed that Tampa General Hospital has been facing a higher rate of medication errors, impacting patient safety and quality of care. She further informed me about her role and responsibilities, including overseeing nursing staff, delegating duties among nurses, and coordinating care. 

Upon delving further into the issues, the head nurse raised issues of poor communication and collaboration among healthcare professionals that resulted in several medication errors. She further informed that leadership had developed policies on double-checking and adequate communication to address the prevailing issue. However, the effectiveness of these policies was a point of discussion. The head nurse described that most of the nursing staff was not complying with policies, resulting in higher nurse turnover rates, ultimately leading to higher prevalence rates of medication errors in the healthcare system.

The organizational culture required change as it could not foster an environment conducive to broad collaboration among multidisciplinary teams. She also mentioned that the hospital administrator conducted interdisciplinary team meetings to discuss the matter. Still, most members needed to show their presence due to time constraints and busy schedules at the hospital. In my interview, I used various strategies to gather enough information on the dominant healthcare issue in our organization. The strategies included in conducting interview are open-ended questions using What, Why, and How to elicit detailed and meaningful responses from the interviewee (Roberts, 2020). 

Issue Identification

The interview with my head nurse helped me identify the issue of medication errors at Tampa General Hospital. Medication errors are preventable adverse events in prescribing, dispensing, and administering medications. This issue can be avoided by implementing an interdisciplinary team approach where physicians, pharmacists, and nurses must coordinate and administer drugs as per patients’ health needs (Wei et al., 2019). The multidisciplinary team approach can identify and address issues that lead to the onset of medication errors, such as communication breakdowns, system weaknesses, technological challenges, and human factors (Manias et al., 2020).

By collaborating with an interdisciplinary team of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and information technologists, medical errors can be significantly reduced, well-informed communication is encouraged, and multifactorial issues can be collaboratively addressed. This will lead to implementing strategies targeting the underlying cause of medication errors (Rodziewicz & Hipskind, 2020).

Change Theories That Could Lead to an Interdisciplinary Solution

Kotter’s 8-step Change Model (KCM) is one of the change theories that could be applied to develop an interdisciplinary solution for addressing medication errors. This model is a structured framework to bring changes within organizations. In healthcare, this change theory developed by John Kotter can improve patient safety and reduce medication errors by using an interdisciplinary team approach (PonceVega & Williams, 2021).

The steps involved in this change theory will convey the urgency of reducing and minimizing medication errors by gathering and presenting data on the prevalence and consequences of these errors. This will be followed by assembling an interdisciplinary team coalition to address medication errors. The leader will create a vision for change in the healthcare system with reduced medication errors by highlighting the roles of interdisciplinary team members to achieve the vision (Harrison et al., 2021).

Furthermore, communication on sharing vision will be encouraged, emphasizing the shared responsibility of each member in diminishing these errors. The leader will assess barriers to interdisciplinary team collaboration and implement changes to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and communication. Lastly, the efficacy of these collaborative sessions will be evaluated, and changes will be reinforced within the organization (PonceVega & Williams, 2021). The KCM theory is relevant to medication errors as the evidence-based resource by PonceVega and Williams (2021) highlights the use of this model in improving patient safety by implementing this theory and resulting in. the minimization of medication errors. Furthermore, this source is credible as it was published within the last five years and mainly addresses patient safety affected by issues like medication errors.

Leadership Strategies That Could Lead to an Interdisciplinary Solution

 Transformational leadership is one of the strategies that inspires and motivates team members to attain higher levels of performance within the organization. This leadership strategy can help healthcare organizations develop interdisciplinary solutions for reducing medication errors (Ystaas et al., 2023). When healthcare professionals are engaged in collaboration meetings, team leaders must foster a culture of mutual respect, open communication, and understanding to strengthen trust among team members. Furthermore, healthcare professionals must be encouraged to contribute ideas and solutions to improve interdisciplinary collaboration and reduce medication errors (Ystaas et al., 2023).

A transformational leadership style will empower healthcare professionals to work towards a shared vision and goal of reducing medication errors. Transformational leadership comprising trust, motivational stimulus, and robust team lead role models will strengthen interdisciplinary team collaboration (Robbins & Davidhizar, 2020). The supported evidence by Ystaas et al. (2023) is credible as it is a systematic review published in the current year. Moreover, it is relevant to medication errors as the article delves into patient health outcomes improved by reduced medication errors due to this leadership strategy.

Collaboration Approaches for Interdisciplinary Teams

Strategic planning is required to establish an interdisciplinary team with a collaborative foundation. This planning requires defining clear objectives and goals, which in this case are reducing medication errors. This is followed by involving the appropriate team members, such as administrators, physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and IT specialists, in interdisciplinary team collaboration.

The team leaders are assigned to communicate leadership roles and responsibilities to reduce medication errors (Wei et al., 2019). They will also help clarify roles to prevent medication errors due to irresponsible behavior or lack of clarity. This also requires interdisciplinary training of team members to educate them on the significance of care coordination and collaboration. This will enable them to envision the primary goal of patient safety and reduce medication errors to work collaboratively (Murray et al., 2019).

NURS FPX 4010 Assessment 2 Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification

To improve the collaboration with established teams in the hospital, it is vital to conduct a collaboration assessment where strengths, weaknesses, and areas of improvement are identified. Moreover, implementing collaborative tools and technologies can further augment collaborative work by streamlining communication and project management. For instance, installing an Electronic Health Record (EHR) can enhance communication and collaboration among interdisciplinary teams to reduce medication errors (Gates et al., 2020).

Lastly, fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement can improve collaboration within the team, where all members are encouraged to share their insights, lessons, and best practices to improve patient safety and reduce medication errors (Mlambo et al., 2021). The evidence-based resource by Gates et al. (2020) is the most credible and relevant to medication errors as it was published within the last five years and highlights the efficacy of EHRs in reducing medication errors, which is the identified issue at Tampa General Hospital. 

Conclusion

In this assessment, I interviewed my head nurse on prevailing healthcare issues. The identified issue was medication errors. This healthcare issue can be solved by using an interdisciplinary team approach. The change model KCM and transformational strategy are essential approaches that lead to the development of interprofessional collaboration. Lastly, I explored collaboration strategies such as clear communication, technology integration, and continuous improvement. These technologies promote seamless collaboration and achievement of desired goals.

References

Gates, P. J., Hardie, R.-A., Raban, M. Z., Li, L., & Westbrook, J. I. (2020). How effective are electronic medication systems in reducing medication error rates and associated harm among hospital inpatients? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 28(1), 167–176. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa230

Harrison, R., Fischer, S., Walpola, R. L., Chauhan, A., Babalola, T., Mears, S., & Le-Dao, H. (2021). Where do models for change management, improvement and implementation meet? A systematic review of the applications of change management models in healthcare. Journal of Healthcare Leadership, 13(13), 85–108. https://doi.org/10.2147/JHL.S289176 

Manias, E., Kusljic, S., & Wu, A. (2020). Interventions to reduce medication errors in adult medical and surgical settings: A systematic review. Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety, 11(1), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/2042098620968309 

NURS FPX 4010 Assessment 2 Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification

Mayo, M. A. (2021). Pandemic preparation & response: A Case study applying Kotter’s 8 step change management theory to improve pandemic response in an acute care setting (Publication No. 559) [Masters Dissertation]. MUSC Theses and Dissertations. https://medica-musc.researchcommons.org/theses/559

Mlambo, M., Silén, C., & McGrath, C. (2021). Lifelong learning and nurses’ continuing professional development, a metasynthesis of the literature. BMC Nursing, 20(62), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-021-00579-2 

Murray, B., Judge, D., Morris, T., & Opsahl, A. (2019). Interprofessional education: A disaster response simulation activity for military medics, nursing, & paramedic science students. Nurse Education in Practice, 39, 67–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2019.08.004 

PonceVega, Dr. J. A., & Williams, Dr. I. A. (2021). Improving quality in primary care: A model for change. International Journal of Business and Management Research, 9(3), 320–329. https://doi.org/10.37391/ijbmr.090310 

Robbins, B., & Davidhizar, R. (2020). Transformational leadership in health care today. The Health Care Manager, 39(3), 117–121. https://doi.org/10.1097/hcm.0000000000000296  

Roberts, R. (2020). Qualitative interview questions: Guidance for novice researchers. The Qualitative Report, 25(9). https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2020.4640 

NURS FPX 4010 Assessment 2 Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification

Rodziewicz, T., & Hipskind, J. (2020). Medical error prevention (pp. 1–37). StatPearls. http://www.saludinfantil.org/Postgrado_Pediatria/Pediatria_Integral/papers/Medical%20Error%20Prevention%20-%20StatPearls%20-%20NCBI%20Bookshelf.pdf 

Wei, H., Corbett, R. W., Ray, J., & Wei, T. L. (2019). A culture of caring: the essence of healthcare interprofessional collaboration. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 34(3), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2019.1641476 

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