Interdisciplinary Plan Proposal
Medication safety needs to be viewed by healthcare professionals to be a continuous quality improvement process. Medical errors and the issue of patient safety stands out to be the main significant challenge experienced by St John’s Hospital. This paper thus outlines a plan which, when implemented, can play a significant role in minimizing medical errors and increasing patient safety within the premises.
Objective
The plan that is intended to address the problem of medication errors and patient safety is ensuring that there is an interdisciplinary collaborative team effort. Healthcare workers need to assist each other in the identification and prevention of potential mistakes that have a possibility of compromising patient safety. According to Manias (2018), the medical institution can greatly benefit if an evidence-based interdisciplinary approach is adopted to solve the issue of medical errors.
The mentioned objective matches the broad organizational goal of becoming more efficient and reduce the number of medication errors. If this objective becomes successful, then it will improve patient safety outcomes and help reduce any financial waste.
Questions and Predictions
1. How will interdisciplinary teamwork be implemented?
a. At the current moment, there is detachment among the different members within the hospital. However, through increasing training, there is a possibility of increasing cohesion among members, thus attain interdisciplinary teamwork.
2. What is the estimated time to implement interdisciplinary teamwork?
a. Change cannot occur overnight, and the same is even much harder whenever complicated aspects such as healthcare are involved. Therefore, it is important to set gradual goals and processes which when met, will result in the overall success of the main goal.
3. What is the cost of implementing the plan?
a. The first thing that needs to change, to minimize medical errors and increase patient safety is improving the healthcare professionals’ attitude towards the patients. This change of mentality will not cost a thing from the financial perspective. However, the plan requires training and more medical equipment being availed to all staff in order to cover all patient locations equally. This training, equipment, and increase in personnel may cost at least $ 100000 in a financial year.
Change Theories and Leadership Strategies
As mentioned in the previous assignment, the change theory adopted to enhance the interdisciplinary teamwork solution is the McKinsey 7-S change model. According to Zero & Summers (2020), the seven aspects required by the organization include strategy, structure, systems, shared values, style, staff, and skills. Shared values among the staff play a critical role in ensuring quality healthcare. Lee & Kim (2020) further assert that poor attitudes and lack of moral sensitivity have shown to have a negative influence on patient safety concepts.
The style in which the organization manages the service needs to focus on team collaboration as there are different members involved in the care process for the patient. According to the change theory, the healthcare organization must ensure that sufficient caregivers and healthcare professionals administer their services such that the members do not become overworked or frustrated.
Team Collaboration Strategy
In order for the plan to be effective, different people need to be allocated diverse roles that are well stipulated.
• Department administrator. Will be the general supervisor in confirming that the plan execution process goes well as required.
• Nursing personnel in charge. Will head the specific health professionals to ensure that patient safety and medical errors are minimized.
• Physicians. Assess the quality of health standards being administered to particular groups of patients.
• Registered nurses and licensed practical nurses will actively participate in teamwork and collaboration.
According to Varagona (2017), each individual needs to feel like they are contributing to the team, and this will help in ensuring the success of an interdisciplinary collaboration. The reduced medication errors and increased patient safety is dependent on change, and change is dependent on teamwork. The collaboration approach is thus critical and can help in reducing medication errors and increasing patient safety.
Required Organizational Resources
• Staffing needs to be adjusted when implementing this change, and this will give the healthcare staff the needed time to learn the new system.
• The nurse manager will have to organize for training among the healthcare staff and coordinate a change in mindset. This is expected to cost an estimate of $100 000 in the whole year.
• There is a need to add more staff so as to minimize the workload per staff.
Implementing the new collaboration strategies among the healthcare staff can help decrease the rate of medication errors. In the event that implementation does not occur, the facility has a higher chance of witnessing high medication errors and reduced patient safety.
In the event that the suggested plan is successful, then the organization will see an increase in cost savings and increased patient outcomes. Teamwork shall streamline the medication administration process, which leads to less time being spent on medication administration and increasing accuracy, thus saving a lot of costs.
