Coordinated care among nurses to improve quality and patient safety

 

Burnout is common among nurses. As a result, communication and a supportive work environment are critical. Nurses can coordinate with each other during medication administration to handle any interruptions (Hammoudi et al., 2017). For example, a nurse can attend a patient of another nurse or external patient for the time being till the assigned nurse completes his or her administration to reduce mix-ups and confusion. Also, communicating with other nurses to identify allergies in a patient to create a patient-specific medication order prevents adverse effects (Huckels-Baumgart et al., 2017). For example, a patient might have an allergy to aspirin. A nurse can discuss with other nurses to find a suitable alternative to prevent allergies. This further reduces health care costs as the patient will not suffer from any negative outcomes (Bradley et al., 2016).

Further, burden-sharing and shared decision-making increase throughput, which is critical in managing burnout. Coordinating with nurses regarding health complications, adverse effects, guidelines by organizations, and dosage calculation increases drug administration competencies and knowledge (Pop & Finocchi, 2016). Also, assisting and educating other nurses to understand the use of EHRs, medication error reporting systems, and other technology increases skills and knowledge (Huckels-Baumgart et al., 2017). It is important in decreasing costs and errors (Manias, 2018). For example, a nurse can assist another nurse in reporting and logging information regarding mismatch in prescription and dispensed drug result in adverse effect prevention.

Stakeholders and safety enhancement

The nurse needs to coordinate between stakeholders such as informatics nurses, pharmacists, physicians, therapists, nurse leaders, patients, and nurse specialists such as anesthesiologists. Patients are important stakeholders as they help the nurses and physicians in assessing the condition by providing information relating to their health history, allergies, and other details (Abukhader & Abukhader, 2020). Also, their consent in selecting a treatment is critical. For example, nurses have to inform the patients about medication errors to select an EBP intervention (Bradley et al., 2016).