Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification Discussion

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Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification Discussion NURS-FPX4010 Example Included

For this assessment, you will create a 2-4 page report on an interview you have conducted with a health care professional. You will identify an issue from the interview that could be improved with an interdisciplinary approach, and review best practices and evidence to address the issue.

As a baccalaureate-prepared nurse, your participation and leadership in interdisciplinary teams will be vital to the health outcomes for your patients and organization. One way to approach designing an improvement project is to use the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement describes it thus:

The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle is shorthand for testing a change in the real work setting—by planning it, trying it, observing the results, and acting on what is learned. This is the scientific method adapted for action-oriented learning…Essentially, the PDSA cycle helps you test out change ideas on a smaller scale before evaluating the results and making adjustments before potentially launching into a somewhat larger-scale project (n.d.).

You might also recognize that the PDSA cycle resembles the nursing process. The benefit of gaining experience with this model of project design is that it provides nurses with an opportunity to ideate and lead improvements. For this assessment, you will not be implementing all of the PDSA cycle. 

Instead, you are being asked to interview a healthcare professional of your choice to determine what kind of interdisciplinary problem he or she is experiencing or has experienced in the workplace. This interview, in Assessment 2, will inform the research that you will conduct to propose a plan for interdisciplinary collaboration in Assessment 3.

It would be an excellent choice to complete the PDSA Cycle activity prior to developing the report. The activity consists of four questions that create the opportunity to check your understanding of best practices related to each stage of the PDSA cycle. The information gained from completing this formative will promote your success with the Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification report. This will take just a few minutes of your time and is not graded.

Reference

Institute for Healthcare Improvement. (n.d.). How to improve. http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/HowtoImprove/default.aspx

Demonstration of Proficiency

  • Competency 2: Explain how interdisciplinary collaboration can be used to achieve desired patient and systems outcomes. 
  • Describe collaboration approaches from the literature that could be relevant in establishing or improving an interdisciplinary team to address an organizational issue.
  • Competency 3: Describe ways to incorporate evidence-based practice within an interdisciplinary team. 
  • Identify an issue from an interview for which an evidence-based interdisciplinary approach would be appropriate.
  • Competency 4: Explain how change management theories and leadership strategies can enable interdisciplinary teams to achieve specific organizational goals. 
  • Describe change theories and a leadership strategy that could help develop an interdisciplinary solution to an organizational issue.
  • Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly, evidence-based communication strategies to impact patient, interdisciplinary team, and systems outcomes. 
  • Organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth transitions; contains few errors in grammar/punctuation, word choice, and spelling.
  • Apply APA formatting to in-text citations and references, exhibiting nearly flawless adherence to APA format.

Professional Context

This assessment will introduce the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Model to create change in an organization. By interviewing a colleague of your choice, you will begin gathering information about an interprofessional collaboration problem that your colleague is experiencing or has experienced. You will identify a change theory and leadership strategies to help solve this problem.

Scenario

This assessment is the first of three related assessments in which you will gather interview information (Assessment 2); design a proposal for interdisciplinary problem-solving, (Assessment 3); and report on how an interdisciplinary improvement plan could be implemented in a place of practice (Assessment 4). At the end of the course, your interviewee will have a proposal plan based on the PDSA cycle that he or she could present to stakeholders to address an interdisciplinary problem in the workplace.

For this assessment, you will need to interview a healthcare professional such as a fellow learner, nursing colleague, administrator, business partner, or another appropriate person who could provide you with sufficient information regarding an organizational problem that he or she is experiencing or has experienced, or an area where they are seeking improvements. Consult the Interview Guide [DOCX] for an outline of how to prepare and the types of information you will need to complete this project successfully.

Remember: this is just the first in a series of three assessments.

Instructions

For this assessment, you will report on the information that you collected in your interview, analyzing the interview data and identifying a past or current issue that would benefit from an interdisciplinary approach. This could be an issue that has not been addressed by an interdisciplinary approach or one that could benefit from improvements related to the interdisciplinary approach currently being used.

You will discuss the interview strategy that you used to collect information. Your interview strategy should be supported by citations from the literature. 

Additionally, you will start laying the foundation for your Interdisciplinary Plan Proposal (Assessment 3) by researching potential change theories, leadership strategies, and collaboration approaches that could be relevant to issue you have identified. Please be certain to review the scoring guide to confirm specific required elements of this assessment. Note that there are differences between basic, proficient and distinguished scores.

When submitting your plan, use the Interview and Issue Identification Template [DOCX], which will help you to stay organized and concise. As you complete the template, make sure you use APA format for in-text citations for the evidence and best practices that are informing your plan, as well as for the reference list at the end.

Additionally, be sure to address the following, which corresponds to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Please study the scoring guide carefully so you understand what is needed for a distinguished score.

  • Summarize an interview focused on past or current issues at a healthcare organization.
  • Identify an issue from an interview for which an evidence-based interdisciplinary approach would be appropriate.
  • Describe potential change theories and leadership strategies that could inform an interdisciplinary solution to an organizational issue.
  • Describe collaboration approaches from the literature that could facilitate establishing or improving an interdisciplinary team to address an organizational issue.
  • Communicate with writing that is clear, logically organized, and professional, with correct grammar and spelling, and using current APA style.

Additional Requirements

  • Length of submission: Use the provided template. Most submissions will be 2 to 4 pages in length. Be sure to include a reference page at the end of the plan.
  • Number of references: Cite a minimum of 3 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your central ideas. Resources should be no more than 5 years old.
  • APA formatting: Make sure that in-text citations and reference list follow current APA style.

NURS-FPX4010 Assessment 2 Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification Discussion Instructions

Summary of the Interview

The interview was carried out on a nurse colleague using the interview guides provided prior to the interview. The nurse, Ms. Thomas, has been an active nurse for the past five years. In the interview, Nurse Thomas asserted that she has participated in some of the changes occurring in her healthcare facility.

Although Nurse Thomas has not been in employment for long, she has seen some transformative changes in the nursing industry and has also actively participated in instituting some of the changes in her healthcare facility. Based on her five years of experience and the changes she has witnessed, interviewing Ms. Thomas was a worthwhile activity.

During the interview, Nurse Thomas divulged to the interviewer that she had identified numerous healthcare solutions that she felt would revolutionize her healthcare organization through the provision of quality care. The nurse said that some of the changes like technology have transformed the nursing profession to unimaginable levels within the last few years. Ms. Thomas also told the interviewer that in her years of work as a nurse, she has seen some revolutionary innovations within the nursing industry that have transformed the nursing practice from what it was some years back.

Some of the strategies used to enhance the quality of the interview include effective communication such as clarity and using simple language. The interviewer used simple English language throughout the interview to eliminate chances of miscommunication or misunderstandings related to difficult jargon. Besides, the questions asked were straightforward and simple to get as much information as possible.

One of the changes that Nurse Thomas admitted having witnessed over the past five years of her professional life as a nurse is the improvement in patient outcomes and quality care. In particular, the nurse quoted efficiently functioning systems and technology as some of the factors that have led to rapid change in the healthcare industry. In the case of systems, Ms Thomas said she has witnessed many healthcare facilities reforming their organizational structures to adopt management approaches that promote efficiency and the provision of quality care to patients.

On technology, the Interviewee lauded such technological advances as artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, and Electronic Health Records as having brought about fundamental changes to her facility and the industry at large. During the interview, Ms. Thomas gave the example of how EHR technology has made the lives of nurses easy by saving them time and energy.

However, Ms. Thomas also admitted during the interview that even with the advancements brought by technology, there were still some challenges that needed solutions. Ms. Thomas particularly decried the issue of rising costs to patients occasioned by technology. She asserted that some hospitals have had to increase their costs and charges to patients to cater to the costs of purchasing and maintaining nursing technology tools.

Secondly, Ms. Thomas asserted that not only is technology expensive for many hospitals, it is also impossible for healthcare facilities to keep changing their equipment with the arrival of newer technology. For this reason, Ms. Thomas told the interviewer that very many healthcare facilities are still stuck in the old way of doing things.

Issue Identification

Technology has been identified as one of the factors contributing to rapid changes in the healthcare sector. Technology in the healthcare industry leads to improved patient outcomes and quality care. Technology has also led to the reduction of medical errors as its precision improves with each new day. However, technology has also brought some challenges such as increased cost of medical care for patients.

Change Theory

Change is inevitable for healthcare facilities because of emerging trends. A simple yet effective change theory that healthcare industry players can utilize to keep up with the current trends is the Kurt Lewin change theory. This theory adopts a three-pronged approach to initiating change. The three stages involved in Kurt Lewin’s change are: unfreezing, changing and refreezing (Deborah, 2018).

Unfreezing is bringing in the desired values, behavior, beliefs, and organizational culture. The changing stage is the stage where people/organizations transition from the old way of doing things to the new way of doing things instituted at the unfreeze stage. The last stage, refreezing is where the new changes are reinforced and solidified as the new way of doing things.

Collaboration

Collaboration is critical in the healthcare industry because it enhances the quality of care for patients. When interprofessionals in healthcare work collaboratively, there is improved healthcare (Carney et al., 2019). Collaboration helps health professionals to become better at what they do through discussions, education, and teaching each other. For patients, collaboration between healthcare professionals leads to improved outcomes and quality care.

Leadership

To solve the identified problems and other problems bedeviling the healthcare facilities, effective nursing leadership is required. Some of the factors required to demonstrate good nursing leadership include skill-based nursing, effective communication, making proper decisions, and positively influencing all employees to adopt positive behavior, culture, values, and philosophies that positively impact the quality of care provided to patients (Hussain et al., 2018). These factors impact the quality of care to patients as well as improving patient outcomes such as patient satisfaction.

References