Interdisciplinary Plan Proposal

Interdisciplinary Plan Proposal Sample Paper

Healthcare institutions require continuous improvements to cater for the ever-increasing patient healthcare needs. This planning proposal attempts to solve patient falls among elderly and critically ill patients. The plan will be implemented in critical care units such as intensive care units, high dependency units, and geriatric patient care in the wards using wearable sensors.

Objective

The objective is to help minimize patient falls and improve patients’ fall reporting among geriatrics and critically ill patients. Patient falls can relay mild or fatal injuries that could lead to death permanent disability. If the plan succeeds, wearable sensors will help detect fall risk factors and help mitigate them, thus reducing healthcare costs associated with fatal injuries and subsequent lawsuits (Greene et al., 2019). Improved reporting will also ensure patient falls are detected and managed early to prevent further complications and thus, will help improve patient outcomes by mitigating undesirable and avoidable injuries.

Questions and Predictions

1. What is the impact of the plan on staff workload? The plan will require the nurses and other healthcare providers, such as the informaticists, more time to interpret and make inferences from the data collected by the sensors.
2. Will the plan provide a good return on investment? According to, moderate to severe patient falls lead to high healthcare costs to treat. Patients also sue hospitals for negligence, increasing costs to the institution. In addition, missed falls may go unnoticed until complications such as sepsis occur and are relatively difficult to treat (Greene et al., 2019). The plan will minimize all these costs and thus will provide a good return on investment.
3. How long will the plan take? Patient falls are a contemporary issue that is recurrent. Thus, the plan is long-term and will thus require effective change management and keen resource allocation and control.

Change Theories and Leadership Strategies

McKinsey 7S model for managing change is the best theory for the plan. The theory entails 7 S: Structure, Strategy, Skill, System, Shared Values, Style, and Staff that will help determine the organization’s readiness to implement a change plan (Galli, 2018). By evaluating these factors, the team will determine the plan’s applicability. The theory also provides a four-step model to help implement a change plan. The first step, which was already discussed, is determining the areas that require change. The second step of the model entails determining the best interventions.

At this stage, every team member’s opinion is considered for decision-making. In the third step, the team determines the best interventions and makes a necessary change (Galli, 2018). Finally, the team implements it in the fourth step. By clearly writing each member’s role in every step, the team collaborates. The democratic leadership strategy is the best for this plan. The strategy allows fair participation in decision-making and respects the opinions of all team members, thus enhancing interprofessional collaboration (John, 2020).

Team Collaboration Strategy

The technicians will place the wearable sensors at the best locations to easily detect motion and constantly ensure they are correctly working. The locations include pressure areas, joints, and the waist (Greene et al., 2019). Nursing informaticists will record data from the sensors and disseminate it to the nurses and other healthcare providers. Nurses will respond to monitor alarms to prevent falls or detect falls.

Doctors will prescribe interventions to minimize falls in patients with higher risks. The healthcare leadership is responsible for change management and availing other necessary resources.

Facilitating open and professional communication is the best collaborative strategy for this plan. Interprofessional teams require professional communication to succeed. Professional communication means that the information is clear, concise, coherent, concrete, and correct (Cazeau, 2021). Passing incorrect information leads to wrong data synthesis and inference and, consequently, decisions made hence the need for professional communication.

Professional communication also ensures respect among team members, which improves their interpersonal interactions and the possibility of success (Vestergaard & Nørgaard, 2018). As with democratic leadership strategy, open communication enhances collaboration by ensuring team members contribute to the planning process without discrimination. Productivity among team members improves when they perceive respect and value. Open and professional communication will t