Applicability to Nursing Practice
My capstone project, team communication strategies, is of great relevance to nurses and the nursing profession. Nurses are communicators and should, thus, communicate with fellow nurses and other healthcare professionals. Moreover, my project, team communication strategies, is important in many other nursing roles. The project looks to improve communication among healthcare workers, especially nurses by utilizing a new locator and communication software. This paper summarizes the role of improved communication among nurses in the performance of various nursing roles.
The most important role of nurses and the nursing profession is to provide holistic care to patients. Comprehensive care involves both the psychological and physical aspects of health. Improved communication of is of great importance in enabling nurses to provide holistic care to all patients. By communicating effectively among themselves, nurses can ensure that they do not miss any information about the health of patients and thus the patients are managed well. Moreover, by providing timely communication, any acute concerns of patients can be addressed by the nurse who understands the issue best in good time. Furthermore, improved communication among healthcare workers ensures that the patients do not undergo unnecessary procedures or given drugs that they do not need, which effectively enhances the safety of the patients. Additionally, good communication among healthcare workers improves collaboration among them (Nancarrow et al., 2013). Good cooperation and collective decision-making among healthcare workers ensure that the best decisions are made hence improving patient outcomes (Nancarrow et al., 2013). Better patient outcomes mean better patient satisfaction which is a sign of adequate holistic care to the patient.
Secondly, nurses are leaders. As leaders, nurses have utilized many different leadership strategies over the years. However, the completion of this project confirmed the importance of transformational leadership in project management. Transformational leadership should not only be used in nursing project management but also in all other aspects of nursing. Transformational nurse leaders involve their subjects in decision-making (Hutchison & Jackson, 2013). Moreover, these leaders get high levels of commitment from their members by leading by example. Instead of commanding their subjects, these leaders consult all the members of a team during the distribution of roles and ensure that, if possible, each member of the team picks the roles that they are most competent at. Finally, unlike any other leaders, transformational leaders emphasize on team-building more than any other thing (Hutchison & Jackson, 2013). In nursing today, team-building should be made a priority. Nurses who work as a team communicate effectively and perform better hence better service and satisfaction for the patient and the nurse.
Third, nurses are required to advance research which adds to the body of evidence already available to be used in nursing care (Houser, 2016). This project is a scholarly research since it is involved in the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data and will be finalized by writing a report. As such, in the project, evidence to be used by future nurses and health institution managers was collected. As such, the study enhanced evidence-based practice in nursing (Houser, 2016). Moreover, the project fulfilled a professional requirement in nursing – research.
Apart from enhancing the fulfillment of nursing roles in providing holistic care to patients, leading by example, and conducting research, improving communication among nurses also enhances their effectiveness in nursing roles such as advocating for the patient and representing the patient. Nurses and nursing cannot work in the absence of proper communication. Improving communication should thus be a priority of every nursing unit. As the project has shown, the use of locator and communication software can be a perfect strategy.
References
Houser, J. (2016). Nursing research: Reading, using, and creating evidence. Burlington, Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Learning
Hutchinson, M., & Jackson, D. (2013). Transformational leadership in nursing: Towards a more critical interpretation. Nursing Inquiry, 20(1), 11-22. doi: 10.1111/nin.12006.
Nancarrow, S. A., Booth, A., Ariss, S., Smith, T., Enderby, P., & Roots, A. (2013). Ten principles of good interdisciplinary team work. Human Resources for Health, 11(1), 19. https://doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-11-19
