TEAMWORK 4

Running head: TEAMWORK 1

Teamwork

Tamara Hunt

Grand Canyon Unviversity

8/15/2021

Teamwork

PICOT Question

For patients in the emergency department, does professional teamwork reduce medical errors?

Evidence-based Solution

Evidence from various sources provides that with teamwork, there is increased success in minimizing medical errors. Teamwork in the emergency department has been shown to minimize medical errors, improve patient mortality rates, increase patient safety, and leads to better staff outcomes (West & Markiewicz, 2016). The approach helps medical professionals to synchronize and support each other throughout the emergency task significantly. Besides, teamwork in the emergency department reduces errors arising from pressure on medical personnel since it helps share responsibilities. In general, teamwork reduces the pressure on a single practitioner, thus minimizing mistakes.

Nursing Intervention

Since the population of people above 65 increases, increased chronic diseases, trauma cases and accidents are also rising. The number of patients needing emergency care has drastically increased, leading to more workload. In this regard, there is a need for more personnel in the emergency rooms. Nurses can be involved in emergency practices as substitutes for doctors, given that not all activities require specialized skills and knowledge. Hospitals should consider incorporating nurses in emergency rooms to increase the capacity of the care workforce. Nurses should not only work as assistants for doctors, but they can also get involved in executing specific tasks. Engaging nurses in emergency room services helps improve efficiency, quality and access to treatment (Sharpe, 2015). Also, doctors and nurses can work together to ensure they effectively respond to all emergency cases.

Patient Care

Doctors in the emergency department have an enormous cognitive load to remember and track activity. Teamwork helps to reduce distractions and enable the doctor to focus on patient care. Notably, this approach significantly reduces the number of preventable deaths and infections during care. Teamwork enables better safety checks to ensure the patient receives the necessary care and limit possible errors.

Health care agency

The healthcare context has been gradually changing over the course. Most significantly, there is an increase of older people and many with complex needs. Similarly, people are more exposed to accidents. All these indicate the need for standby emergency departments. Delivering health care support services to such patients involves working with others to make better choices (Watson & Isenberger, 2013). The approaches help the agency to continue monitoring the patient even after being discharged. Noteworthy, this reduces unexpected admissions, especially among patients with chronic diseases. Besides, it makes the services better and increases trust among patients.

Nursing practice

Preventive approaches based on evidence-based practice are practised to ensure patient safety in the emergency room. In this regard, medical practitioners must collaborate to ensure programs are followed. The nurses need to ensure they are consistent with shift assessment. More so, the necessary interventions and handoffs should ideally be at the bedside. The nurses should work together to support emergency doctors to ensure no interventions are missed due to the overwhelming workload.

References

Sharpe, M. (2015). Engaging front-line nurses to improve the outcomes of patient care, 2006–13. Health Affairs, 34(12), 2196-2201. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0475

Watson, N. C., & Isenberger, J. L. (2013). Working as a team to improve patient care in the intensive care unit. Academic Medicine, 88(11), 1618. doi:10.1097/acm.0b013e3182a7f82f

West, M. A., & Markiewicz, L. (2016). Effective team working in health care. Oxford Handbooks Online. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198705109.013.8

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