They say it takes a village to raise a child; the same can be said when caring for a patient. The bedside nurse and the physician may be the primary caregivers in charge of the patient.
However, it truly takes a team (aka village) to efficiently and effectively care for a patient. This is truer today than ever before because patients are sicker (increased co-morbidities), the workloads in hospitals have increased, and there is miscommunication or lack of communication amongst hospital staff – all leading to increased stress and possible burnout of our healthcare professionals. The need for reliable, secure communication processes is no longer a nice to have. They are now a must have.
The nurse must not only communicate with the physician primarily caring for the patient, but any of the other consulting physicians as well. Not to mention the residents, med students and nursing students at teaching hospitals. The other important members of the care team may include, but are not limited to:
- The charge nurse
- Nursing supervisor
- Social worker
- Care manager
- Respiratory therapist
- Physical therapist
- Speech therapist
- Dietary Department
- Chaplains
Nurses also must coordinate care with the transport team, the EVS teams and the volunteers (sometimes we all need a little pet therapy). Multiply all these interactions by the number of patients the nurse is caring for along with medication administration and patient assessments during their 12-hour shifts and you can see why strong clinical communication is key to the patient’s treatment.
News from our partners.