Nursing Collaboration and Roles

Collaboration

• Collaboration is essential for optimal patient, family, and community outcomes.
• It involves individuals from diverse backgrounds, specialties, and roles in the care plan.
• Collaboration is crucial for reducing errors.
• Insurance restrictions on readmissions within 30 days affect bonuses and raises.
• Nurse-patient collaborations include creating care plans and discharge plans, and working with community partners.
• Nurse-nurse collaborations include quality improvement, mentoring, meetings, handoffs, and student learning.
• Interprofessional collaboration (with pharmacists, doctors, aids, therapists, and patients) improves quality, safety, patient outcomes, and job satisfaction.
• Collaboration values mutual respect, trust, and striving for safer, more efficient care.
• It respects diverse cultures, values ethical conduct, and high-quality care within a team.
• Nurses must recognize professional limits and adapt roles based on patient needs.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Collaboration requires understanding roles, responsibilities, and legal boundaries.
• Nurses must utilize their expertise and develop strategies to provide safe, timely, effective, and equitable care.
• Teamwork supports collaborative practice and team effectiveness.
• Collaboration involves engaging others in problem-solving for the patient.

Care Coordination

• Care coordination synchronizes activities and information to improve patient health outcomes.
• It supports the expanding role of RNs in a comprehensive care system.
• Care coordination is particularly important during transitions between healthcare settings.
• Key attributes of care coordination include patient-centered care plans, evidence-based care, efficiency, improved health outcomes, value-based care delivery, and interprofessional teamwork..

Target of Care Coordination

• Patients vulnerable to fragmented care are at the highest risk of negative outcomes.
• Care coordination is a cost-intensive but essential aspect of holistic patient-centered care.

Roles of the Nurse

• RNs educate patients on managing chronic conditions, especially focusing on medication management.
• RNs guide structured interventions, implementation, and program evaluation.
• Effective care coordination is apparent in improved patient health outcomes.
• RNs need knowledge of health insurance and payment methods.

Exemplars of Care Coordination

• Care coordination is crucial in high-risk pregnancies, preterm infants, special needs children, frail/elderly patients, transitional care, mental illness, and end-of-life care.

Delegation

• Delegation is the transfer of specific nursing tasks (when appropriate) to competent individuals with the authority to perform them.
• The RN remains accountable for delegated tasks.
• Delegation is limited by the five rights: task, circumstance, person, direction, and supervision.

Delegation Restrictions

• Blood products, IV push medications, initial assessments, initial teachings, and invasive procedures cannot be delegated.

RN Practice

• Teaching, supervising patient care, delegating nursing staff, and assessing patient status define the practice of an RN.

Role of a Registered Nurse (RN)

• RNs promote health, prevent diseases, provide comfort and care, make decisions, act as patient advocates, lead and manage nursing teams, manage cases, rehabilitate patients, communicate effectively, and educate patients, families, and communities.

Vital Signs

• Temperature: Normal range is 96.8–100.4°F; routes include axillary, oral, rectal, temporal, and tympanic.

• Heart Rate (Pulse): 60–100 bpm; affected by age, exercise, pain, medications, anxiety, and body temperature. Athletes and some medications can lower HR.

• Blood Pressure (BP): Normal is 120/80 mmHg; hypertension is diagnosed if consistently high in three different situations. Postural or orthostatic hypotension involves measuring BP in sitting, standing, and lying positions.

• Oxygen Saturation (SpO2): Normal is 95–100%. If below normal, ask the patient to take a deep breath and recheck.

• Respiratory Rate: Normal is 12–20 breaths per minute; head injuries or increased intracranial pressure can depress respiratory function. Assess rate, pattern, and sounds.

• Pain: Differentiate between acute and chronic pain; use the PQRST method (Provokes, Quality, Radiates, Severity, Time) to assess and document. Utilize numerical or face-based pain scales.

When to Measure Vital Signs

• Initial assessment
• During physical assessments
• Before and after invasive procedures
• During medication administration
• Before, during, and after blood transfusions
• When client condition changes
• When interventions may affect the patient
• When fever is present

This quiz explores the significance of collaboration in nursing, emphasizing how it enhances patient care, safety, and job satisfaction. It covers various aspects including interprofessional collaboration and the important roles nurses play in care planning and quality improvement. Test your understanding of effective teamwork in healthcare.