NHS4010 Assessment 3: Interdisciplinary Plan Proposal Essay

NHS4010 Assessment 3: Interdisciplinary Plan Proposal Essay

Medication errors are among adverse events that result in multiple health and economic ramifications, including deaths, disability, increased cost of care, and prolonged hospitalization. According to Escrivá Gracia et al. (2019), patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) are more susceptible to an average of 1.7 medical errors daily, increasing their exposure to life-threatening consequences. Human and organizational factors facilitate medication mistakes. In an interview with a registered nurse at Valley Regional Medical Center’s emergency department, the respondent identified time pressure, experience issues, unfamiliarity with medication management procedures, and ineffective team performance as the primary causes of medication mistakes at the organizational level. Escrivá Gracia et al. (2019) support these contentions by identifying low adherence to protocols, poor drug knowledge among professionals, absence of double checking, and flawed systems for detecting failures as contributing and causal factors for medication errors. Therefore, it is essential to note the organization should implement an interdisciplinary plan proposal to cultivate a safety culture and reduce the occurrence of medication errors. This paper elaborates on an interdisciplinary plan proposal for preventing errors by focusing on its objectives, questions and predictions, change theory and leadership strategies, and resources necessary for the plan’s success.

Objectives of the Interdisciplinary Plan

The primary purpose of the interdisciplinary plan proposal is to cultivate a culture of safety by sealing loopholes, including personal and organizational factors that facilitate medication errors. In this sense, the plan focuses on elements of organizational change, leadership strategies, and resources needed to promote the effective implementation of collaborative interventions for preventing and reducing medication mistakes.

Questions and Predictions

1. What is the role of an interdisciplinary team in preventing and reducing medication errors?

An interdisciplinary team consisting of physicians, nurses, informaticists, and medical assistants is responsible for implementing protocols for effective medication management to reduce medication errors. These interventions include incorporating evidence-based practice in managing medication errors, utilizing advanced technologies to prescribe, deliver, and administer medications, and collaborating in developing effective communication and reporting systems.

2. What are the potential constraints when implementing the interdisciplinary plan proposal?

The organization will encounter various challenges when implementing the interdisciplinary proposal to prevent and reduce medication errors. These constraints include system deficiencies, conflict of interest, inadequate resources, and employees’ unfamiliarity with the change process. Therefore, ensuring proper preparedness, effective change communication, and obtaining staff buy-in is essential to facilitate change implementation and sustenance.

3. How will the interdisciplinary team determine the effectiveness of the plan proposal?

The implementation team will conduct formative and summative evaluations to assess the plan’s effectiveness in reducing the occurrence of medication errors. Formative assessments will reveal the project’s progress and unanticipated barriers to the effective implementation of the interdisciplinary plan. According to Elwy et al. (2020), formative assessments can be developmental, process-focused, and pre-implementation evaluations. After these assessments, summative evaluations will determine if the plan is consistent with the strategic objectives and the overarching goal of preventing and reducing medication errors. The implementation team will apply findings from summative assessments to establish the need to redesign, replace, or duplicate the plan.

Change Theory and Leadership Strategies

The organization should incorporate change to challenge the status quo and address factors contributing to medication errors. In this sense, it is vital to use change management theory which provides guidelines for interdisciplinary collaboration and team performance. Kotter’s change theory emerges as a profound theoretical framework for communicating, implementing, and sustaining change when healthcare organizations endeavor to enact new quality improvement initiatives. Carman et al. (2019) contend that Kotter’s eight-step theory contains three profound tenets that summarize all other steps. These tenets are creating the climate for change, engaging and enabling the whole organization, and implementing and sustaining change.

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The first tenets entail cultivating a climate for change by establishing a sense of urgency, building guiding coalitions and partnerships, and developing a vision and strategy for achieving change (Carman et al., 2019). Secondly, the organization can engage employees to implement and assimilate change by communicating the change vision, generating short-term successes, and empowering them to embrace change elements. Finally, it is possible to implement and sustain change by anchoring new approaches in the organizational culture and producing more change.

This change theory is consistent with the interdisciplinary plan proposal for preventing and reducing medication errors because it emphasizes the need for creating a sense of urgency in addressing patient safety issues, obtaining staff buy-in, communicating change vision, empowering health stakeholders, and sustaining change by aligning the organizational culture with the new quality improvement approaches. As a result, it provides comprehensive and sequential steps for implementing new interventions and challenging restraining factors for change.

Although Kotter’s eight-step change theory can inform the change process consistent with the need to prevent and reduce medication mistakes, its effectiveness relies massively upon leadership strategies and styles. In this sense, it can improve change implementation, assimilation, and sustenance by incorporating transformational leadership strategies. According to Ree & Wiig (2019), transformational leadership cultivates a culture of critical and creative thinking by motivating employees to participate in decisions and processes, improving job demands, and reducing mental workload. Also, this leadership strategy enables leaders to recognize and reward employees, fosters trust among team members, enhances collaboration and cooperation between leaders and followers, and improves interpersonal relationships within organizations (Seljemo et al., 2020). As a result, it has emerged as the favorite leadership style for facilitating change and enabling the whole organization to sustain new approaches.

Strategies for Collaboration and Organizational Resources

An interdisciplinary team consisting of physicians, nurses, organizational leaders, medical assistants, informatics experts, and patients should collaborate to implement measures for preventing and reducing medication errors. The collaboration strategies for team members should be based on positive leadership, effective communication, knowledge enhancement through training, and cultivating a supportive team climate. According to Kholed et al. (2017), inter-professional teamwork should exhibit trust, respect, and mutual support. Trust entails positive working relationships, job satisfaction, and openness in sharing information. On the other hand, respect involves allowing team members to express ideas and opinions, understanding other professionals’ roles, and ensuring equality in team performance.

Similarly, the organization requires adequate resources to implement an interdisciplinary plan proposal for preventing medication errors. These resources include personnel and other-than-personnel expenses. Personnel expenditures will ensure effective implementation of staff-related improvement measures such as employee training, hiring additional informatics experts, and reimbursing the implementation team. Other-than-personnel expenses will include updating and installing automated dispensing cabinets, improving health information systems, monitoring and evaluating the provision of learning materials, and change sustenance.

Conclusion

Medication errors are inevitable yet preventable adverse events that result in multiple ramifications, including deaths, disability, increased care costs, prolonged hospitalization, and compromised quality of life. Therefore, implementing an interdisciplinary plan proposal alongside Kotter’s eight-step change theory, transformational leadership, and effective collaboration strategies can enable the organization to address contributing and causal factors for reducing the occurrence of medication mistakes. Further, the organization should allocate adequate resources to complement personnel and other-than-personnel expenses such as employee training, hiring additional informatics experts, installing advanced technologies like automated dispensing cabinets and computerized physician order entry (CPOE), and provision of learning and training materials.

References

Carman, A. L., Vanderpool, R. C., Stradtman, L. R., & Edmiston, E. A. (2019). A change-management approach to closing care gaps in a federally qualified health center: A rural Kentucky case study. Preventing Chronic Disease, 16(E105). https://doi.org/10.5888/pcd16.180589

Elwy, A., Wasan, A., Gillman, A., Johnston, K., Dodds, N., McFarland, C., & Greco, C. (2020). Using formative evaluation methods to improve clinical implementation efforts: Description and an example. Psychiatry Research, 283, 112532. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2019.112532  

Escrivá Gracia, J., Brage Serrano, R., & Fernández Garrido, J. (2019). Medication errors and drug knowledge gaps among critical-care nurses: A mixed multi-method study. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4481-7

Kholed, S. N. S., Hassan, N. M., Ma’on, S. N., & Hamid, N. Z. A. (2017). Teamwork and collaboration in healthcare: Elements of inter-professional teamwork. Advanced Science Letters, 23(11), 10834–10837. https://doi.org/10.1166/asl.2017.10164

Ree, E., & Wiig, S. (2019). Linking transformational leadership, patient safety culture, and work engagement in-home care services. Nursing Open, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.386

Seljemo, C., Viksveen, P., & Ree, E. (2020). The role of transformational leadership, job demands and job resources for patient safety culture in Norwegian nursing homes: A cross-sectional study. BMC Health Services Research, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05671-y

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Write a 4-5 page evidence-based proposal to support the need for a nurse informaticist in an organization who would focus on improving health care outcomes.

Introduction
As you begin to prepare this assessment, you are encouraged to complete the Team Perspectives of the Nurse Informaticist activity. Completion of this will help you succeed with the assessment as you explore the nurse informaticist\’s role from the different perspectives of the health care team. Completing activities is also a way to demonstrate engagement.

Nurses at the baccalaureate level in all practice areas are involved in nursing informatics through interaction with information management and patient care technologies. Nurses must not only demonstrate knowledge of and skills in health information and patient care technologies, but also how to use these tools at the bedside and organizational levels. Moreover, nurses need to recognize how information gathered from various health information sources can impact decision making at the national and state regulatory levels.

Scenario
For this assessment, assume you are a nurse attending a meeting of your state’s nurses association. A nurse informaticist conducted a presentation on her role and its impact on positive patient and organizational outcomes in her workplace. You realize that your organization is undergoing many technological changes. You believe this type of role could provide many benefits to your organization.

You decide to pursue proposing a nurse informaticist role in your organization. You speak to your chief nursing officer (CNO) and human resources (HR) manager, who ask you to prepare a 4–5 page evidence-based proposal to support the new role. In this way, they can make an informed decision as to whether the addition of such a role could justify the return on investment (ROI). They need your proposal before an upcoming fiscal meeting.​ This is not an essay, but instead, it is a proposal to create a new Nurse Informaticist position.

One important part of this assessment is the justification of the need for a nurse informaticist in a health care organization and references from relevant and timely scholarly or professional resources to support the justification for creating this nurse informaticist position. The term justify means to show or prove that the nurse informaticist position brings value to the organization. This justification must include evidence from the literature to support that this position will provide a return on investment for the organization.

Preparation
To successfully prepare for this assessment, you will need to complete these preparatory activities:

Review assessment resources and activities.
Conduct independent research on the nursing knowledge and skills necessary to interact with health information and patient care technology.
Focus your research on current resources available through peer-reviewed articles, professional websites, government websites, professional blogs, wikis, job boards, and so on.
Consult the BSN Program Library Research Guide for help in identifying scholarly and authoritative sources.
Interview peers in your network who are considered information technology experts.
Ask them about how information technology advances are impacting patient care at the bedside, at the organizational level, and beyond.
Proposal Format
The chief nursing officer (CNO) and human resources (HR) manager have asked you to include the following headings in your proposal and to be sure to address the bullets following each heading:

Nursing Informatics and the Nurse Informaticist
What is nursing informatics?
What is the role of the nurse informaticist?
Nurse Informaticists and Other Health Care Organizations
What is the experience of other health care organizations with nurse informaticists?
How do these nurse informaticists interact with the rest of the nursing staff and the interdisciplinary team?
IMPACT OF FULL NURSE ENGAGEMENT IN HEALTH CARE TECHNOLOGY
How does fully engaging nurses in health care technology impact:
Patient care?
Protected health information (security, privacy, and confidentiality)?
In this section, you will explain evidence-based strategies that the nurse informaticist and interdisciplinary team can use to effectively manage patients\’ protected health information, particularly privacy, security, and confidentiality. Evidence-based means that they are supported by evidence from scholarly sources.
Workflow?
Costs and return on investment?
Opportunities and Challenges
What are the opportunities and challenges for nurses and the interdisciplinary team with the addition of a nurse informaticist role?
How can the interdisciplinary team collaborate to improve quality care outcomes through technology?
Summary of Recommendations
What are 3–4 key takeaways from your proposal about the recommended nurse informaticist role that you want the CNO and the HR manager to remember?
This is the section where the justification for the implementation of the nursing informaticist role is addressed. Remember to include evidence from the literature to support your recommendation.
Additional Requirements
Written communication: Ensure written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message.
Submission length: 4–5 double-spaced pages, in addition to title and references pages.
Font: Times New Roman, 12 point.
Citations and References: Cite a minimum of three current scholarly and/or authoritative sources to support your ideas. In addition, cite a minimum of one current professional blog or website to support your central ideas. Current means no more than five years old.
APA formatting: Be sure to follow APA formatting and style guidelines for citations and references. For an APA refresher, consult the Evidence and APA page on Campus.
Competencies Measured
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:

Competency 1: Describe nurses\’ and the interdisciplinary team\’s role in informatics with a focus on electronic health information and patient care technology to support decision making.
Define nursing informatics and the role of the nurse informaticist.
Explain how the nurse collaborates with the interdisciplinary team, including technologists, to improve the quality of patient care.
Justify the need for a nurse informaticist in a health care organization.
Competency 2: Implement evidence-based strategies to effectively manage protected health information.
Explain evidence-based strategies that the nurse and interdisciplinary team can use to effectively manage patients’ protected health information (privacy, security, and confidentiality).
Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly communication to facilitate use of health information and patient care technologies.
Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and references.
Create a clear, well-organized, and professional proposal that is generally free from errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.