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Interdisciplinary Plan Proposal

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Course

Instructor

Date of Submission
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Interdisciplinary Plan Proposal

Staff shortages are a great threat to health care safety. When health care organizations are

short-staffed, they have an increased risk of safety issues such as medication errors and low

patient satisfaction. Thus, it is important for health care leaders to implement interdisciplinary

strategies that help to solve human resource limitation issues.

Objective

The objective of this interdisciplinary plan proposal is to increase the assistive staff members and

change staff scheduling to reduce nurses’ overworking. This plan aims to increase delegation of

nursing roles to help fill in the staff limitations that are causing both patient and nurse

dissatisfaction.

Questions and Predictions

1. How much do you think staff assistants will solve the staffing issues?

The assistant staff will create opportunities for more delegation of tasks. The nurses are too

overworked but some of their current tasks can be done by non-certified assistant nursing staff

members. Thus, we are hoping that hiring the assistant staff members will help to relieve the

burnout off the nurses and increase patient satisfaction.

2. What is the expected effect of this intervention?

We expect this to be a temporary solution to the problem. Nurses will have less tasks on their

schedules, which will reduce burnout. There will also be a reduced chance of safety issues as the

nurses will have more time to dedicate to their patients.

3. Does the organization have other future plans to solve the issue?
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The organization will hire more nurse practitioners in the future when its financial issues are

solved. We still need a larger nursing team to increase the safety of patient care and increase the

patients’ and nurses’ level of satisfaction with the care and the jobs, respectively.

Change Theories and Leadership Strategies

An appropriate change theory that would help this organization to solve its resource

issues is Kurt Lewin’s freeze-unfreeze-refreeze process. This theory examines how

environmental and behavioral issues can stop successful interdisciplinary change. It is common

for people to want to maintain their status quo because it is comfortable (Teguh, Hariyati, &

Muhaeriwati, 2019). Therefore, this theory advocates for the implementation of activities that

help to unfreeze people from their current status before implementing the actual change. After

implementing the change, they can refreeze the situation to ensure that the new change is

sustainable (Teguh, Hariyati, & Muhaeriwati, 2019).

This theory can be applied in the process of creating a new staffing and scheduling

system that involves more assistant nurses. The current interdisciplinary staff may be stuck in the

current processes and schedules and may find it hard to appropriately delegate tasks to the

assistive staff. Thus, the organization should apply Lewin’s theory to eliminate the restraining

forces to the change, implement the change, and then try to incorporate driving forces that will

solidify the change.

The article by Teguh, Hariyati, & Muhaeriwati (2019) used to validate the importance of

Kurt Lewin’s theory is a credible source as evidenced by its peer-reviewed nature. This is a peer-

reviewed journal article published in the International Journal of Nursing and Health Services. It

is also current, which means that its information is relevant to current nursing.
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A leadership strategy that could lead to a successful interdisciplinary solution is

practicing open communication. Open communication is a practice is ensuring full disclosure of

information to the relevant interdisciplinary team. Open communication increases the

interdisciplinary team engagement and commitment to participate in the change process (Pype et

al., 2018). Open communication is particularly relevant to this interdisciplinary team issue

because it will require changes in the current work processes and schedules of the existing team.

Maintaining open communication will ensure that each of the team members understands the

changes that will be implemented in their personal work processes.

The resource Pype et al. (2018) supports the role of open communication is successful

interdisciplinary teams. The data from this article can be considered as credible as it is a peer

reviewed journal published in a reputable journal in the past five years.

Team Collaboration Strategy

The best collaboration approach for the interdisciplinary team is to incorporate

technology into their collaboration. Technology can facilitate better communication between the

interdisciplinary team; hence, making it easier to safely delegate some of the tasks to the

assistive staff. For example, electronic health records (EHRs) have been found to have a positive

effect in team communication (Mundt & Zakletskaia, 2018). This intervention is suitable for this

issue because it involves sharing of important tasks. Technology is essential in ensuring that

these tasks are shared appropriately and the assistive staff is performing its role as expected.

Required Organizational Resources

The organization will need to invest financial resources into the hiring of the assistant

staff members. The estimated costs of this process are around $1.5 million. They will also be
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required to allocate some time to the training of the staff members so that they are prepared to

take over the nursing assistant role at the organization.

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References

Mundt, M. P., & Zakletskaia, L. I. (2018). Putting the pieces together: EHR communication and

diabetes patient outcomes. The American journal of managed care, 24(10), 462.

Pype, P., Mertens, F., Helewaut, F., & Krystallidou, D. (2018). Healthcare teams as complex

adaptive systems: understanding team behaviour through team members’ perception of

interpersonal interaction. BMC health services research, 18(1), 1-13.

Teguh, A., Hariyati, R. T. S., & Muhaeriwati, T. (2019). Applicability of Lewin's change

management model for optimization management function in nursing delegation between

head nurse and team leader: A mini project in Jakarta military hospital. International

Journal of Nursing and Health Services (IJNHS), 2(2), 66-74.