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Euro Nursing 2018: Small geographic nursing teams improve teamwork and patient outcomes - Cathy Rodgers Ward, UCLA Medical Center, USA

Cathy Rodgers Ward

UCLA Medical Center, USA

Statement of the Problem: The implementation of healthcare reform requires new innovative nursing care models.  Smaller work teams have been shown to increase teamwork in nursing.  Smaller work teams provide for increased communication and accountability, closer supervision, better support for new staff, and increased knowledge of the patient condition. This study examines the effect of an innovative care team model using smaller, geographic work teams on patient outcomes, continuity of care and teamwork.

Methods and Theoretical Orientation: This study was conducted on three hospital units in an academic medical center. Nurses in these units were divided into equal teams with equal bed counts.  Nurses were assigned to one team and one geographic area only.  Success of the model was assessed after one year including clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, nurse continuity and nurse teamwork.

Results: Nurse continuity improved in all units as evidenced by the average number of new RN encounters (including day and night shifts) decreased from 4.49 per patient to 3.94 per patient. The percent of team intactness was 87.4% indicating the model was successfully followed. Patient length of stay (LOS) in the hospital decreased across units by 14% therefore reducing overall costs.   Patient satisfaction scores were variable across units.  Satisfaction with nursing teamwork and nursing trust mean scores improved significantly (p=.04) across units.

Conclusions and Significance: Developing smaller, more cohesive teams yields benefits of improved continuity of care for patients and improved patient outcomes. Improved continuity of care for patients may lead to safer care and improved engagement for nurses.  Defining smaller work teams in a distinct geographic area is a model that shows promising results in developing teamwork among nurses and improving patient care.

Why is teamwork important

Collaboration turned into significant wellbeing mediation for various reasons. To start with, clinical consideration is getting more minds boggling and concentrated, driving clinical staffs to endeavor confounded wellbeing administrations and rapidly learn new techniques. Maturing populaces, the expansion of constant sicknesses like diabetes, malignancy, and coronary illness have constrained clinical staffs to adopt a multidisciplinary strategy to medical services. In nations like the United States, clinical groups must oversee patients experiencing various medical issues.

Different nations are additionally worried about expanding admittance to medical services for assorted populaces. In Brazil, wellbeing groups train to personally comprehend the requirements of patients, yet in addition of neighborhood networks and various societies.

Also, specialists have discovered that cooperating lessens the quantity of clinical mistakes and builds tolerant security. Collaboration additionally lessens issues that lead to burnout. Never again is one individual answerable for the patient's wellbeing; today, a whole group of wellbeing laborers meets up to facilitate a patient's prosperity Health groups help separate pecking order and concentrated intensity of wellbeing associations, giving more influence to wellbeing laborers.

Third, since cooperation is focused on strong correspondence, patients and their families here and there feel more quiet and report they acknowledge medicines and feel more happy with their medical services. Wellbeing laborers are additionally discovered to be more hab6ppy with their work. An investigation discovered attendants who experience effective group building endeavors are happier with their work.

Collaboration and group preparing is presently observed as fundamental piece of preservice schooling. Since figuring out how to impart successfully and cooperate can be tedious, learning collaboration inside the setting of clinical educational plans will improve understudies arranged.

Learning the essentials of cooperation and community oriented consideration assists understudies with bettering comprehend understanding requirements – particularly in zones where social and medical problems flourish. A program in India trains attendants working with HIV patients to work inside numerous jobs: instructor, lab specialist and effort laborer.

The World Health Organization Suggests that understudies start utilizing the standards of cooperation in their schooling right away. What is useful is that numerous projects show issue based getting the hang of, permitting understudies to cooperate, share data, and take care of clinical issues as a group.