Communication Teamwork Among Nursing Staff: Importance And Implications

Description of the clinical experience

Discuss About The Communication Teamwork Among Nursing Staff.

Healthcare is the complex and is seen to involve coordination of different types of talented professionals so that they can provide high quality as well as safe care to the patients who are seeking for service (Kalsich et al., 2015). This assignment would be mainly incorporating experiences that I had during the clinical placement months and would try to introduce different management techniques by which such situations could be overcome in the future.

During the months of clinical placement, I got the opportunity to be in the shoes of a leader where my immediate mentor provided me a responsibility to develop a team of five members and serve the rehabilitation ward attending to the various needs of the patients attending the long-term care. I was quite excited to get the opportunity to be a leader an immediately informed them that we were acting as a team. The members were startled at first but since I did not want to waste time over introduction period, I directly allocated them their task and asked them to collaborate among themselves. However, a number of issues came into existence where I saw many of the professionals arguing among themselves over the intervention that they need to apply. Blame games became very common among the team members. It made me disappointed and I called the members to make them know that such behaviors would not be accepted. They stated that they were not comfortable in working with each other and stated that their working style did not match. I did not pay much importance to it and thought that they were making excuses. Therefore, I did not pay much heed. However, the result was not satisfactory as the deadlines were missed, the work done were not aligning with others of the team members, the reports prepared about the work were incomplete and many others. My mentor was dissatisfied and this affected my moral.

One of the most important issues that were missed out was the proper following of effective guidelines for the development of team. The team that was developed had not followed the five important steps that are extremely important for development of teams. The first step of development of team is called forming. In this step, the team members need to acquaint and thereby establish the different ground rules. In this step, formalities are mainly preserved and the members feel as strangers (tofil et al., 2014). While, the team leaders were establishing the accounting, it was seen that he had not develop any form of ground rules and therefore the members might have felt directionless and  would have become confused about what need to follow in the teams. The next step is called the storming step. In this step, the members start to communicate about their feelings but still they feel themselves as individuals and not as  apart of the team. They are mainly seen to resist the control showed by the team leaders and exhibit hostility. This theory helped me realize that similar incidence had taken place when the members were blaming each other and complaining that they were not comfortable with their members. In this step, the team leaders have an important role to play where they need to conduct meetings and initiate feedback sessions where the members should provide constructive feedback against each other and therefore maintain an environment of transparency 9souza et al., 2016). The next step is called the norming stage and due to my inability to handle the previous step, this step was also affected. People feel part of the team in the norming stage and they gradually began to realize that they can achieve the goal of the work when they are ready to accept other’s viewpoints. In the team, the members were not ready to initiate any communication as power struggles and blames games were the two main barriers in the team. As an effective team member, I also failed miserably in developing a workplace climate where they can communicate effectively by training them the importance of communication or taking them to informal outings where they can interact with others. As a result they were not emotionally attached to each other and therefore trust and bonding could not be formed (yi et al., 2016). The next step is called the performing stage where the team is mainly seen to work in an open as well as the trusting atmosphere. In such atmosphere, flexibility is ensured and hierarchy is not given any more importance. Due to the improper completion of the previous steps, it was seen that the team members could not perform their best and they were not working collaboratively but were mainly individualistic and therefore the work they ultimately predicted at the end had no connections with each other.  Moreover, the patients were seen to complain that there the members had provided them medications twice, some had not even received medications where team members blamed each other, long waiting times and many others. All these showed that the performing stage completely failed in the maintenance of effective teamwork. The team environment did not become enough flexible and a power struggle was still observed among the members that prevented a collaborative output (Ballard et al., 20150. This step is called the adjourning stage where the members need to conduct an analysis of the performance and accordingly implements plan for the transitioning roles and recognitions of the members’ contributions. The team leaders had not conducted the entire step and therefore, he was not able to understand the various issues that needed urgent attention and needed to overcome. Therefore, as the steps of the team formation were not properly followed, therefore, the team that was formed could not function effectively.

Theoretical analysis

Improved teamwork is excessively important for the maintenance of the smooth workflow with the first positive outcome is that it helps in developing patient satisfaction and outcome. Effective teamwork ensures proper communication that reduces the chance of occurrence of medication errors in patients, others type of errors like long waiting times for patients, ineffective documentation and many others (Zhang et al., 2015). When healthcare plans are discussed and communicated among team members they remain clear about what needs to be achieved and therefore this helps in better achievement of patient goals. Moreover, effective teamwork also has other outcomes. It is seen that this helps in reduction of work burden when members work together and help each other in times of crisis. Therefore, chances to reduce workload also reduce emotional pressures on the patients and therefore they can lead better quality life with proper work balance (Bragodottir et al., 2016). All these lead to higher job satisfaction as high stress situations are collaboratively handled by the different members. Moreover, researchers are also of the opinion that teamwork results in increased professional accountability. They have stated that daily huddles are helpful in e handing accountability by helping the nurses to be in a loop and thereby helps in reinforcing different changes in policies and procedures. This again has an effective outcome where the turnover rates of the nurses become low. As the teamwork reduces work pressures and help in equal distribution of pressure in times of crisis, burnout syndromes are avoided and this had positive outcome on the health of the professionals. Moreover, it also helps in development of the workplace climate that helps in improvement of the engagement in the workplace (Gausvik et al., 2015). Therefore, relationships shared by the individuals with other colleagues as well as with the organization become developed and chances of workplace dissatisfaction become slow. It would help managing the principle number 10 that involves the collaborative working environment with the other members of the team and thereby ensure safe and effective work in the ward.

Conclusion:

From the above discussion, it becomes very clear that effective teamwork helps in ensuring patient safety. They tend to get developed high quality patient care that meets every aspect of their needs and results in higher satisfaction. Moreover, it also reduced turnover, increases workplace engagement and increases job satisfaction. Therefore, team leaders should develop proper skills of team bonding and train their members so that effective teamwork can be ensured.

References:

Ballard, D. (2015). Teamwork and Nursing: A Generational Comparison (Doctoral dissertation, Western Connecticut State University).

Bragadóttir, H., Kalisch, B. J., Smáradóttir, S. B., & Jónsdóttir, H. H. (2016). The psychometric testing of the Nursing Teamwork Survey in Iceland. International journal of nursing practice, 22(3), 267-274.

Gausvik, C., Lautar, A., Miller, L., Pallerla, H., & Schlaudecker, J. (2015). Structured nursing communication on interdisciplinary acute care teams improves perceptions of safety, efficiency, understanding of care plan and teamwork as well as job satisfaction. Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare, 8, 33.

Kalisch, B. J., Aebersold, M., McLaughlin, M., Tschannen, D., & Lane, S. (2015). An intervention to improve nursing teamwork using virtual simulation. Western journal of nursing research, 37(2), 164-179.

Souza, G. C. D., Peduzzi, M., Silva, J. A. M. D., & Carvalho, B. G. (2016). Teamwork in nursing: restricted to nursing professionals or an interprofessional collaboration?. Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da USP, 50(4), 642-649.

Tofil, N. M., Morris, J. L., Peterson, D. T., Watts, P., Epps, C., Harrington, K. F., … & White, M. L. (2014). Interprofessional simulation training improves knowledge and teamwork in nursing and medical students during internal medicine clerkship. Journal of Hospital Medicine, 9(3), 189-192.

Yi, Y. J. (2016). Effects of team?building on communication and teamwork among nursing students. International nursing review, 63(1), 33-40.

Zhang, Y., Soroken, L., Laccetti, M., De Castillero, E. R., & Konadu, A. (2015). Centralized to hybrid nurse station: Communication and teamwork among nursing staff. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 5(12), 34.