Improving Delegation Skills

Interprofessional team collaboration for professional nurses is viewed as a method to improve the care and safety for patients. However, interprofessional team collaboration presents both advantages and challenges for nurses and other team members. One of the advantages is the coordination of care for the patient and the sharing of knowledge to improve the outcomes for the patient. Challenges for interprofessional team collaboration is: poor role-definition, miscommunication, conflict, lack of accountability for assignment of responsibilities and tasks (Reeves, 2012). This paper will discussion the role of a nurse on an interprofessional team and the challenges, why interprofessional teams promote patient safety, and strategies to promote success interprofessional teams.

However, if team nursing were to be fully accepted and embraced, I believe that delegating one nurse to chem strips and another to medication, etc., could be very beneficial to patient care delivery. Deutschendorf (2010) defines assignment as “the transfer of responsibility to another while retaining accountability for the outcome” (p. 441). I feel as though the execution of care hubs on my particular unit is not being fully embraced by all nurses based on the lack of trust between nurses and the worry that tasks, documentation, and care delivery will not be done properly or sufficiently, often leaving liability and accountability a fear for nurses. Additionally, I often find nurses splitting up their patient assignment based on the dedication and hard work of their co-nurse. For example, a hands-on and attention to detail nurse, may not feel comfortable working with a nurse who spends much of their shift on their cellphone or behind a computer

Laura Hope Laws was a hopeful and helpful young woman, and an active member of her church’s youth group. At only 14, she had a spot on her varsity soccer team; soon in her career, she broke her jaw and had been prescribed pain killers. She then became addicted to them. At 13, Laura experimented with alcohol and marijuana, but it never became a problem. After running out of her pain killers, however, Laura searched and searched for more, but then decided to turn to something more available: heroin.

Teams working in a hospital or other healthcare setting may consist of several physicians, nurses, medical assistants, referral coordinators, pharmacists, therapists, and students among others. Such large teams can provide comprehensive care for complex and chronic illnesses, but when they fail to work well together, they

According to American Nurses Association (2010) Scope and Standards of Nursing Practice, collaboration is defined as, “a professional healthcare partnership grounded in a reciprocal and respectful recognition and acceptance of: each partner’s unique expertise, power, and sphere of influence and responsibilities; commonality of goals; the mutual safeguarding of the legitimate interest of each party; and the advantages of such a relationship”.(p. 64). Collaboration amongst health care providers is very crucial in providing quality care to patients. Integration of disciplinary teams, improves communication, coordination, and most importantly, the safety and quality of patient care. It provides interaction between team members allowing

Each facility has their specific way of scheduling and protocol for staffing; not every facility uses a model that has other nurses’ help decide the next shifts nursing assignment. Some places will have a separate person makes the assignments and determine which nurse will get which patients during each shift, this can lead to the issue of the person making the assignments not knowing specifics and the level of care needed for each individual patient. In some cases a nurse may only have a few patients and another nurse has double as many. The level of care each individual patient needs is a huge aspect to take into consideration, making pervious nurses

Communication includes verbal and written, as well as the ability to document data. One of the most difficult transitions, and a main stress factor, is the new graduates’ ability to communicate with the physicians. Having the ability to be a leader is a key to success. “To be an effective leader, a nurse must show collaborative teamwork, which is consistent with AACN core competencies. To fulfill this competency, new graduates must be able to delegate to others to promote patient safety and health” (Theisen & Sandau, 2013). Conflict resolution with team members and patients was a noted as a skill that new graduates lacked. “Several new graduates expressed concern that they were unprepared to deal with conflict appropriately and professionally” (Theisen & Sandau, 2013). Due to the lack of experience, new graduates are unfamiliar with the proper ways to deal with conflict successfully. Mentorship has been an effective way in improving new graduates confidence in dealing with conflict, because they were guided through real situations. Organization, prioritization, and time management was another identified problem. The ability to prioritize patient care, which has a direct effect on patient safety, is a critical component of nursing. “Both new graduates and employers have

Those nurses may not have acquired the skills necessary to anticipate the needs of the team members. Moreover, they may not have learned how to cooperate, communicate, and integrate care. And, they fail to evaluate and adjust to their actions and are not able to give and receive feedback. They do not apply their knowledge and critical thinking to understand the current situation and how to act upon it. Some of the other factors that also contribute are lack of awareness of errors, lack of willingness to report errors, faulty memory, poor communication skills, or lack of patient knowledge, patient diagnosis and the names, purposes, and correct administration of the medication (Carlton & Blegen, 2006).

Teamwork in nursing is a little different that the teamwork of an actual team. In nursing, there is an ‘I’ in team, except here the ‘I’ stands for independent (QSEN Institute, 2015). Nurses and hospital faculty work their independent jobs, but communicate in order to give the patient the best care possible. Once again as stated before by Berman, the QSEN Institute believes that knowing your team 's strengths and weaknesses will also help you to be able to provide the best care possible.

When nurses promote collaborative interdisciplinary care, they are ensuring the availability and accessibility of quality health care (ANA, 2010). As the nursing supervisor in this clinical setting, I would hold a staff meeting with the family nurse practitioner (FNP), nurse, licensed vocational nurse (LVN), nutritionist, and social worker. I would ask them to speak about their areas of expertise and explain how their knowledge will enhance this clinical team. The nutritionist’s expertise in diet, the social worker’s fluency in Spanish, the LVN’s training in education, and the nurse’s specialization in

Delegation is widely acknowledged to be an essential element of effective management (Yukl, G. 1994). Delegation is basically a process of assigning responsibility, sharing authority, and producing accountability in organizations. It is a managerial instrument that allows managers to nurture subordinates to capitalize the subordinate’s potential and ability to meet organizational goals and objectives. As a form of employee involvement in decision-making, delegation describes a category of leader behavior that entails assignment of new responsibilities to subordinates and additional authority to carry them out (Yukl, G. 1998). Managers usually find it easier to speak about delegation of

This paper will attempt to show what skills are necessary for effective delegation, and how the managers of the author 's organization uses delegation in his or her management responsibilities. The paper will also attempt to show how delegation could be used more effectively within the four functions of management in that same organization. Through delegation managers combine task responsibilities and the authority needed to carry out tasks in the organization. The author will also discuss some advantages of delegation as well as the issue of poor delegation.

Teamwork and collaboration in nursing can be defined as the development of partnerships to achieve best possible outcomes that reflect the particular needs of the patient, family, or community, requiring an understanding of what others have to offer. (Giddens & Liesveld, 2013). This means that nurses are constantly working as a team to provide the best care for their patients. Working as part of a team may include listening to the client, getting help from another nurse to verify dosage calculations or working alongside the doctor to carefully facilitate their orders. I don’t believe any one nurse would be effective if they were working by themselves. The profession alone is demanding and one nurse working by themselves to assist the needs of more than one patient at a time would be dangerous.

effectiveness (Cioffi & Ferguson, 2009). Therefore, it is important to ensure that nurses who assume leader roles have the skills to manage and delegate tasks as required. There must be clearly defined roles and responsibilities for each team member that take into account the levels of expertise among the members. It can be troublesome when team members do not carry their share of the work. When this occurs, other team members take on an additional work burden to address the shortfalls in patient care. If the team leader is unable to provide clarity and direction for the team, the model will not be effective.

The team model allows the utility of nonprofessional nursing personnel such as LPNs and nursing assistants, through delegation and observation by an RN while holding a team leader accountable.( Tiedeman&Lookinland,2004) The focus is to work collaboratively and cooperatively with shared responsibilities, and to some extent accountabilities, for assessment, planning, delivering, and evaluation of patient care. ( Tiedeman&Lookinland,