The nursing practice involves a number of critical components that ensure that a nursing action is through interprofessional team support. The workplace setting is a geriatric unit, where a nurse plays an essential role in cooperation with the interprofessional team of medical specialists, nurses, and patient’s family members. In world geriatric practice, the entire circle of specialists, who are focused on a specific elderly patient, forms the so-called multidisciplinary team.
It is important to note that social workers, as well as families of patients, are necessarily involved in the activities of such a team. Team function that could be improved in the interprofessional communication. At the same time, in countries with a developed structure of geriatric services, a key figure in a multidisciplinary team is, in many cases, a nurse. It is important to apply CARE principles, which are compassion, advocacy, resilience, and evidence-based practice (EBP), through interprofessional team support in order to achieve favorable patient outcomes.
The geriatric nurse is a specialist of a special kind, and he or she not only helps the geriatrician by following his instructions, such as task-centered nursing – nursing assistance aimed at completing tasks but also makes responsible decisions regarding his or her patients, that is, patient-centered nursing is a activity or care focused primarily on patients. The nurse knows her patients because he or she knows their living conditions, family situation and relationships, medical diagnoses, psychological state, and social support needs.
A nursing action that can promote compassion in the geriatric setting is to show respect for one’s privacy by clearly communicating with patients about their needs. In addition, there is a problem of compassion fatigue, which also should be eliminated by assigning a limited number of patients (Mooney et al., 2017).
For instance, knocking on the door and asking the patient’s permission to enter or conduct an examination involving bodily contact can prove useful in this regard. Interprofessional teams can also follow similar behavioral etiquette, which will improve overall patient outcomes, such as emotional comfort and individual privacy. It also will change the geriatric unit’s culture by making it more focused on the patient’s needs.
Interprofessional teams can collectively advocate for patients by ensuring his or her safety zone and giving a patient a voice to communicate freely about their needs and major or minor concerns. This type of approach will shift the unit’s culture towards patient-centered nursing practice (Hilbert & Yaggi, 2018). In addition, the patient outcomes will be manifested in the fact that the patient’s right will be protected, further giving patients more confidence in the team.
Nurses as professionals are under constant stress and adversity, which puts the resilience factor at the centerpiece of the nursing profession. The given emotional component can also be applied for interprofessional teams because the constant pressure is prevalent in other medical professions (Delgado, Upton, Ranse, Furness, & Foster, 2017). The nursing actions, such as relaxation techniques and mindfulness, can have an impact on improving and enhancing the teams coping mechanisms with stress. These activities can be performed in small groups in the offices during small breaks.
The unstressed teams can greatly improve the quality of their work, which will be manifested in better patient care. The work of a geriatric nurse requires high-stress tolerance and endurance, conflict-free behavior, developed communication skills, and a quick reaction. Nurses have to deal with a variety of manifestations of geriatric syndromes such as night attacks, neurasthenic seizures, exacerbation of psychosomatic disorders, refusal to eat or take medication, and communication.
In order to implement evidence-based practice in the interprofessional team support setting, it is important to factor in communication and thorough evidence collection. These nursing actions will ensure that the key evidence is present, and the resulting practice approach is fully adherent to the latest clinical data. This component can only be extensively implemented in the interprofessional team setting because a nursing practice requires the expertise of other medical specialists.
The culture of the unit will significantly shift towards including professional communication and the exchange of ideas and expertise. The patient outcome will also improve drastically, because a nursing practice will be fully factual, based on evidence, and involve professional knowledge of multiple med
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