Article #2
Enhancing Nurse and Physician Collaboration in Clinical Decision Making Through High-fidelity Interdisciplinary Simulation Training
By: Pamela M. Maxson, PhD, RN; Eric J. Dozois, MD; Stefan D. Holubar, MD; Diane M. Wrobleski, PhD, RN, and etc. According to McConaughey and Marshall and Manus, the Joint Commission identified communication problems as the root cause of 65% of sentinel events with 74% resulting in deaths. The communication between nurses and physicians is a very vital thing to make sure things run smoothly in a hospital. Effective collaboration between nurses and physicians has been shown to reduce morbidity and mortality rates, cost of care, and medical errors and to improve job satisfaction and retention of nursing staff (Mayo Clinic, 2011). Collaboration between nurses and physicians is a big deal for retention purposes. Patients are at risk of serious effects when exchanged information is misunderstood or misinterpreted. The need for improvement in the ability of nurses and physicians to exchange information is well known. Team-training exercises for health care professionals are considered to be highly effective tool to improve communication and team performance, especially in crisis situations (Mayo Clinic, 2011). One way to do this is high fidelity simulation training which offers a realistic and experiential environment in which learners practice response to clinical scenarios, debrief, and evaluate team performance in the absence of patient risk (Mayo Clinic, 2011). Simulation exercises offer a site for dialogue on and active listening to one another's perspectives, thoughts, and practices. The purpose of this article was determine if interdisciplinary simulation team training can positively affect perceptions of nurses and/or physicians about collaboration in clinical decision making. A group of registered nurses and