Collaboration approaches for interdisciplinary teams

For this assessment, you will create a 2-4 page report on an interview you have conducted with a health care professional. You will identify an issue from the interview that could be improved with an interdisciplinary approach, and review best practices and evidence to address the issue.

As a baccalaureate-prepared nurse, your participation and leadership in interdisciplinary teams will be vital to the health outcomes for your patients and organization. One way to approach designing an improvement project is to use the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement describes it thus:

The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle is shorthand for testing a change in the real work setting—by planning it, trying it, observing the results, and acting on what is learned. This is the scientific method adapted for action-oriented learning…Essentially, the PDSA cycle helps you test out change ideas on a smaller scale before evaluating the results and making adjustments before potentially launching into a somewhat larger scale project (n.d.).

You might also recognize that the PDSA cycle resembles the nursing process. The benefit of gaining experience with this model of project design is that it provides nurses with an opportunity to ideate and lead improvements. For this assessment, you will not be implementing all of the PDSA cycle. Instead, you are being asked to interview a health care professional of your choice to determine what kind of interdisciplinary problem he or she is experiencing or has experienced in the workplace. This interview, in Assessment 2, will inform the research that you will conduct to propose a plan for interdisciplinary collaboration in Assessment 3.

Reference

Institute for Healthcare Improvement. (n.d.). How to improve. Retrieved from http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/HowtoImprove/default.aspx

Demonstration of Proficiency

· Competency 2: Explain how interdisciplinary collaboration can be used to achieve desired patient and systems outcomes.

o Summarize an interview focused on past or current issues at a health care organization.

o Describe collaboration approaches from the literature that could be relevant in establishing or improving an interdisciplinary team to address an organizational issue.

· Competency 3: Describe ways to incorporate evidence-based practice within an interdisciplinary team.

o Identify an issue from an interview for which an evidence-based interdisciplinary approach would be appropriate.

· Competency 4: Explain how change management theories and leadership strategies can enable interdisciplinary teams to achieve specific organizational goals.

o Describe change theories and a leadership strategy that could help develop an interdisciplinary solution to an organizational issue.

· Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly, evidence-based communication strategies to impact patient, interdisciplinary team, and systems outcomes.

o Communicate with writing that is clear, logically organized, and professional, with correct grammar and spelling, using current APA style.

Professional Context

This assessment will introduce the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Model to create change in an organization. By interviewing a colleague of your choice, you will begin gathering information about an interprofessional collaboration problem that your colleague is experiencing or has experienced. You will identify a change theory and leadership strategies to help solve this problem.

Scenario

This assessment is the first of three related assessments in which you will gather interview information (Assessment 2); design a proposal for interdisciplinary problem-solving, (Assessment 3); and report on how an interdisciplinary improvement plan could be implemented in a place of practice (Assessment 4). At the end of the course, your interviewee will have a proposal plan based on the PDSA cycle that he or she could present to stakeholders to address an interdisciplinary problem in the workplace.

For this assessment, you will need to interview a health care professional such as a fellow learner, nursing colleague, administrator, business partner, or another appropriate person who could provide you with sufficient information regarding an organizational problem that he or she is experiencing or has experienced, or an area where they are seeking improvements. Consult the Interview Guide (attached) for an outline of how to prepare and the types of information you will need to complete this project successfully.

Remember: this is just the first in a series of three assessments.

Instructions

For this assessment, you will report on the information that you collected in your interview, analyzing the interview data and identifying a past or current issue that would benefit from an interdisciplinary approach. This could be an issue that has not been addressed by an interdisciplinary approach or one that could benefit from improvements related to the interdisciplinary approach currently being used. Additionally, you will start laying the foundation for your Interdisciplinary Plan Proposal (Assessment 3) by researching potential change theories, leadership strategies, and collaboration approaches that could be relevant to issue you have identified.

When submitting your plan, use the Interview and Issue Identification Template (attached), which will help you to stay organized and concise. As you complete the template, make sure you use APA format for in-text citations for the evidence and best practices that are informing your plan, as well as for the reference list at the end.

Additionally, be sure to address the following, which corresponds to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Please study the scoring guide carefully so you understand what is needed for a distinguished score.

· Summarize an interview focused on past or current issues at a health care organization.

· Identify an issue from an interview for which an evidence-based interdisciplinary approach would be appropriate.

· Describe potential change theories and a leadership strategies that could inform an interdisciplinary solution to an organizational issue.

· Describe collaboration approaches from the literature that could facilitate establishing or improving an interdisciplinary team to address an organizational issue.

· Communicate with writing that is clear, logically organized, and professional, with correct grammar and spelling, and using current APA style.

Additional Requirements

· Length of submission: Use the provided template. Most submissions will be 2 to 4 pages in length. Be sure to include a reference page at the end of the plan.

· Number of references: Cite a minimum of 3 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your central ideas. Resources should be no more than 5 years old.

· APA formatting: Make sure that in-text citations and reference list follow current APA style.

Interview Summary
Summarize your interview in this section. Be sure to relate concise information about:

· the health care organization that was discussed in the interview.

· the interviewee’s role and duties.

· the relevant issues at the organization.

· any relevant comments on the actions taken by the organization or leadership previously and their effectiveness.

· the organizational culture related to collaboration.

· any relevant collaboration or interdisciplinary team experience you interviewee has had.

The goal of this section is to convey what was discussed at the interview and identify an issue to pursue throughout the rest of this assessment (and future assessments in this course), as well as have enough information to relate theories, strategies, and approaches to the situation at the organization.

Issue Identification
Identify the issue from the interview for which you consider an evidence-based interdisciplinary approach appropriate. Provide one or more specific reasons why an interdisciplinary approach would be appropriate for the issue.

Change Theories That Could Lead to an Interdisciplinary Solution
For this section, look to the literature and describe one or more change theories that would help to develop an interdisciplinary solution to the identified issue. Also, you should briefly note the relevance and credibility of the sources that you cite.

Another way to think through this section is:

· What is the change theory?

· How could it help create an interdisciplinary solution?

· How relevant is the theory to the specific identified issue?

· How credible is the source?

Leadership Strategies That Could Lead to an Interdisciplinary Solution

This section is similar to the previous one, except you will be looking to the literature to help you describe one or more leadership strategy that would help you develop an interdisciplinary solution to the identified issue. Also, you should briefly note the relevance and credibility of the sources that you cite.

Another way to think through this section is:

· What is the leadership strategy?

· How could it help create an interdisciplinary solution?

· How relevant is the strategy to the specific identified issue?

· How credible is the source?

Collaboration Approaches for Interdisciplinary Teams

Again, this section will be similar to the previous once, except that the focus will be on collaboration approaches. Depending on whether or not your interviewee’s organization uses interdisciplinary teams frequently, your focus in this section may be on how to establish interdisciplinary teams and a collaborative foundation or how to improve the collaboration within an already established teams. You should also briefly note the relevance and credibility of the sources that you cite.

Another way to think through this section is:

· What is the leadership approach?

· How could it help establish or improve collaboration?

· How relevant is the approach to the specific identified issue?

· How credible is the source?

References