Interview Summary
The interviewee is a registered nurse working in the intensive care unit of a local hospital. The nurse is a female in her late twenties with five-year working experience at the hospital mentioned above. The interviewee provides a wide range of healthcare services to patients with diverse acute health issues, including the administration of medications, evaluation of patient vital signs, the performance of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, and monitoring and set up of medical equipment, among others.
One of the most burning issues, in the interviewee’s opinion, is the inappropriate safety culture or rather its absences. The nurse noted that there were some protocols regarding safety issues that could be regarded as safety culture policies. However, the policies do not work as medical errors are quite common at the hospital. Importantly, nursing professionals, as well as other healthcare practitioners, try to conceal their or their peers’ mistakes rather than report, which only leads to more serious issues, as seen by the interviewee. Recent changes in management resulted in the launch of an investigation concerning the incidence of medical errors at the hospital, but the results have not been provided yet.
The nurse stated that the lack of collaboration could be one of the reasons for the prevalence of medical errors. Although interdisciplinary teams often work on the development of some programs and patient treatment plans, it is quite common when physicians put the blame on nurses or vice versa. The nurse has worked in interdisciplinary teams, and she viewed the experience positively due to its potential benefits. However, she also mentioned the lack of trust and respect, physicians’ leading roles, insufficient nurses’ participation in decision making.
Issue Identification
Effective safety culture is critical for the functioning of any healthcare facility. Although this issue is quite common for the healthcare system, various methods of improving the situation exist. The use of an interdisciplinary approach has proved to be effective for the establishment of a working safety culture and specific safety policies (Tetuan et al., 2017). In the present case, the use of an interdisciplinary approach can also be beneficial as all healthcare professionals have similar views on medical error and behave in a similar way. The development of effective policies and the provision of training can be the steps that will bring positive changes (Lopez-Jeng & Eberth, 2019). However, the effectiveness of these steps can be facilitated by the involvement of interdisciplinary groups.
Change Theories That Could Lead to an Interdisciplinary Solution
Numerous approaches and models aimed at changing people’s behavior have been developed. The Five As Behavior Change Model can be appropriate in the hospital under analysis. This model implies five stages that include assessing, advising, agreeing, assisting, and arranging (Lopez-Jeng & Eberth, 2019). The interdisciplinary team will assess the situation (exploring behaviors and beliefs) and advise on the benefits of change. The next phase is agreeing, which encompasses the development of specific goals. Assisting is an important stage that involves the identification of major barriers and approaches for change.
Finally, arranging implies the creation of a sound plan that can be an effective policy in the case under study. This model should be used to create interdisciplinary teams that will develop safety policies that will become the basis of safety culture. The model for change has been employed in diverse settings and has proved to be effective. The model is described in the study implemented by Lopez-Jeng and Eberth (2019). This source is relevant as the article is current and published in a peer-reviewed journal. The researchers utilize sound methodology and appropriate sample size.
Leadership Strategies That Could Lead to an Interdisciplinary Solution
Effective leadership is an important component of organizational change related to safety culture establishment (Kagan, Porat, & Barnoy, 2019; Tetuan et al., 2017). Transformational leadership is the most appropriate leadership strategy in the present case as healthcare professionals need encouragement, support, and guidance rather than performance ratings and punishment/reward approach (Kagan et al., 2019).
The healthcare professionals employed in intensive care units are overwhelmed with tasks, have to respond to numerous emergency situations, which leads to medical errors. Interdisciplinary teams will identify the major causes and effects of medical errors, as well as barriers to implementing change from different perspectives (Tetuan et al., 2017). The sources referenced in this section are credible as they are published in peer-reviewed articles. They are current and based on sound methodology.
Collaboration Approaches for Interdisciplinary Teams
As mentioned above, transformational leadership should be employed to ensure effective collaboration within interdisciplinary teams. Each team will have a leader coordinating the work of the team. This leader should acknowledge the need for change and should understand the value of every member’s input (Tetuan et al., 2017). Kagan et al. (2019) explore the benefits of the involvement of patients in the creation of a safety culture, which can be relevant in the present case. As mentioned above, the administration of the hospital implemented research related to medical error.
This experience can be utilized to examine the current safety culture based on the attitudes of healthcare professionals, administrators, and patients (Kagan et al., 2019). This approach will help identify major weaknesses and barriers to establishing a sound safety culture. The articles referenced in this section are relevant as they are based on proper methodology and are published in current peer-reviewed articles.
References
Kagan, I., Porat, N., & Barnoy, S. (2019). The quality and safety culture in general hospitals: Patients’, physicians’ and nurses’ evaluation of its effect on patient satisfaction. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 31(4), 261-268. Web.
Lopez-Jeng, C., & Eberth, S. D. (2019). Improving hospital safety culture for falls prevention through interdisciplinary health education. Health Promotion Practice. Web.
Tetuan, T., Ohm, R., Kinzie, L., McMaster, S., Moffitt, B., & Mosier, M. (2017). Does systems thinking improve the perception of safety culture and patient safety? Journal of Nursing Regulation, 8(2), 31-39. Web.