Abstract
Background
Effective physician–nurse collaboration is an important, but incompletely understood determinant of patient and nurse satisfaction, and patient safety. Its impact on physicians has not been described. This study was undertaken to develop a fuller understanding of the collaboration experience and its outcomes.
Methods
Twenty-five medical residents, 32 staff nurses, 5 physician and 5 nurse faculty wrote narratives about successful collaboration; the narratives were then qualitatively analyzed. Narrative analysis was the initial qualitative method iteratively employed to identfy themes. A phenomenological approach was subsequently used to develop a framework for collaborative competence.
Results
Collaboration triggers, facilitative behaviors, outcomes and collaborative competence were the themes identified. Affect was identified in the triggers leading to collaboration and in its outcomes. Practioners typically entered a care episode feeling worrried, uncertain or inadequate and finished the interaction feeling satisfied, understood and grateful to their colleagues. The frequency of affective experience was not altered by gender, profession, or ethnicity. These experiences were particularly powerful for novice practioners of both disciplines and appear to have both formative and transformative potential. Collaborative competence was characterized by a series of graduated skills in clinical and relational domains. Many stories took place in the ICU and afterhours settings.
Conclusions
Despite the prevailing wisdom that nursing and medicine are qualitatively different, the stories from this study illuminate surprising commonalities in the collaboration experience, regardless of gender, age, experience, or profession. Collaborative competence can be defined and its component skills identified. Contexts of care can be identified that offer particularly rich opportunities to foster interprofessional collaboration.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the nurses and residents who offered their stories freely and the interdisciplinary faculty who generously gave their time to this collaboration exercise. We also thank Madeline Schmitt for conceptual input. There was no external funding support for this study.
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There was no financial/funding support for this study or paper. The section of this paper on affective dimensions of collaboration was presented as an abstract at the annual meeting of the Society of General Internal Medicine, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, April 26, 2007.
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McGrail, K.A., Morse, D.S., Glessner, T. et al. “What is Found There”1: Qualitative Analysis of Physician–Nurse Collaboration Stories. J GEN INTERN MED 24, 198–204 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-008-0869-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-008-0869-5