Team Nursing
Team nursing is a system where patient care is distributed among nurses working in a coordinated approach. Craig (2015) defines team nursing as two or more people interacting interdependently with a common purpose, having measurable goals and encouraging mutual participation in problem-solving. It is the shared purpose that makes it possible for teams to implement ways through which they promote desirable health outcomes by sharing patients’ results and jointly participating in discussions to enhance performance. In such cases, the nurse in charge can delegate authority to a team leader who then works closely with the rest of the team to ensure effective delivery of health care. The coordinated approach is critical in settings such as those involved in acute care since it contributes to effective allocation of duties, giving instructions and adhering to the schedules involved in patient care.
With team nursing, the responsibility of planning and coordination of care is bestowed upon a group of nurses who then work together to ensure patients’ needs and expectations are well addressed. Nurses involved in collaborative care share knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that define the way they interact with other health care practitioners, patients, and their families as well as the communities. As Craig (2015) explains, team nursing is critical since it provides a platform where patient needs are placed first and that there is a strong commitment among leaders in encouraging inter-professional bonding in healthcare. In addition, the need for team nursing is contributed by the fact that it enhances effective interpersonal relationships within health care settings, which makes it easier to solve work-related conflicts.
The need for team nursing in health care
As argued by Leonard et al. (2004), building effective teams require nurses to come together through a shared purpose and be ready to work together to improve their work as well as enhance the safety of patients. Nurses need to have a clear knowledge on their roles and how such roles fit into the team to ensure they actively contribute towards creating sustainable working relationships. It is, therefore, the role of team leaders to consistently remind nurses of the need to have a sense of common purpose and work towards practicing teamwork in their daily work activities. Martin et al. (2014), stressed the fact that nurses work best when their working atmosphere is characterised by openness and mutual trust which improves face-to-face communication as well as the capacity of the nurses to work to their own strengths. Communication failure is, therefore, among the reasons for increasing patient harm, hence the need for nurses to have a standardised platform where they come together in expressing their concerns and alerting other members in case there are unsafe situations at the facility.
The need for coordinated care is to ensure there are fewer patients’ accidents in acute care settings and that patients’ stay in hospital is shortened since coordinated nursing is key to enhancing quick recovery of patients. By coming up with a model where nurses work together, public trust and confidence in the work of nurses is enhanced which then encourages patients to seek medical interventions from public health care settings whenever they are sick. The fact that health care has become complex creates they need for various practitioners to come together with families and patients in finding better ways to reduce disease burden in the nation. Nurses need to come together in learning new methods that would help them cope with complexities in terms of dealing with increasing incidences of chronic illnesses like cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases that put pressure on the performance of practitioners.
With the rise in chronic illnesses, it is important that nurses come together in deciding on ways through which they can reduce medical errors which is key in proving competence among nurses. Since nurses spend much time with the patients and are the ones tasked with the responsibility to understand various aspects of a patient including their emotional, clinical and social situations. It is, therefore, imperative for them to work in teams as the best way to reduce work burn out. Team nursing is important in enhancing nurses’ adaptability and commitment in their work where they become key team players as well as team leaders through their delegated responsibilities. The complexity of modern day health care calls for effective relationships between nurses and physicians since while the former is responsible for ordering appropriate interventions, nurses are there to carry out the interventions as directed by the physicians. While incidences such as a nurse suggesting that “it is not my patient” are common in the absence of team nursing, such attitudes are replaced when nurses begin to work together such that phrases such as “I will take that patient” prevail in collaborative nursing. Nurses working in terms are therefore more willing and committed to engaging patients while at the same time relieving their colleagues of work burden they may be encountering.
Team nursing is key to enhancing employee satisfaction such that health care settings do not have to suffer from high turnover rates. Adopting the team nursing model, therefore, enhances satisfaction scores where nurses are willing to share their concerns with their colleagues thereby improving ways through which conflicts could be managed. Team nursing also improves competence among nurses since those who are new in the profession are paired with experienced colleagues where they could gain much from observing the way the latter go about their daily nursing activities. In other words, team nursing is a form of mentorship where junior nurses get to learn from their seniors through observing or carrying out their delegated mandates which then reduces the likelihood of the nurse committing errors during treatment.
The less experienced are therefore provided with the opportunity to develop in terms of self-confidence, efficacy and patients acre skills which makes them appreciated the working atmosphere and be ready to remain part of the setting and profession for a sustainable period. Team nursing is also critical in helping nurses cope with uncertainty that may arise while working in a diverse environment. Nurses who share a common purpose value and appreciate the need to manage diversity such that it becomes easier for them to break down racial, ethnic, religious and gender stereotypes that often interfere with effective delivery of health care. Team nursing therefore provide situations where nurses are comfortable with their colleagues in spite of differences and are willing to collaborate for the sake of improving health outcomes. Team nursing also provides best way of solving both emotional and task conflicts. Emotional conflicts are resolved in the ways team nursing promotes effective interpersonal relationships while the shared purpose makes it possible for nurses to learn how to embrace constructive conflicts resolution and avoid poor working relationships that could contribute to medical errors.
Team nursing is, therefore, important since it enhances effective management of health services where nurses are motivated to improve effectiveness and efficiency in nursing. While working in teams and appreciating the need for them to have common goals, nurses in collaboration with other practitioners are able to enhance the level of patient care. Improving health outcomes is key to assuring the public of competence and hence the need for the patients, their families, and communities to have trust and confidence in the health services provided in public health settings.
References
Craig, M. (2015). Team building: How to effectively build teams in health care. Nursing Times, 16-18.
Leonard, M., Graham, S., & Bonacum, D. (2004). The human factor: the critical importance of effective teamwork and communication in providing safe care. Quality and Safer Health Care, 185-190. doi:doi: 10.1136/qshc.2004.010033
Martin, J., McCormack, B., & Fitzsimons, D. (2014). The importance of inspiring a shared vision. International Practice Development Journal, 1-10. Retrieved from http://www.fons.org/library/journal.aspx
Pfaff, K., Baxter, P., & Jack, S. (2014). Exploring new graduate nurse confidence in interprofessional collaboration: A mixed methods study. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 1-11. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2014.01.001
