Team nursing

Team nursing is a system of integrated care that was developed in 1950s (under grant from W.K. Kellogg Foundation) directed by Eleanor Lambertson at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York, NY. Because the functional method received criticism, a new system of nursing was devised to improve patient satisfaction. “Care through others” became the hallmark of team nursing. It was developed in an effort to decrease the problems associated with the functional model of nursing care. Many people felt that, despite a continued shortage of professional nursing staff, a patient care delivery model had to be developed that reduced the fragmented care that accompanies functional nursing.

Team nursing was developed because of social and technological changes in World War II drew many nurses away from hospitals, learning haps, services, procedures and equipment became more expensive and complicated, requiring specialisation at every turn. It is an attempt to meet increased demands of nursing services and better use of knowledge and skills of professional nurses.

The objective of team nursing is to give the best possible quality of patient care by utilising the abilities of every member of the staff to the fullest extent and by providing close supervision both of patient care and of the individual who give it.

A clear line of organisation structure is needed for team nursing to provide a mechanism for horizontal and vertical communication, and an organised pattern is employed.

The two important points of functioning are:

The greatest single distinguishing feature of team nursing is the team conference. In general, there are three parts to the conference;

It is essential that the conference be well planned, brief but comprehensive and interesting. The team leader is the chair person for the conference. They offer opportunity for all personnel to evaluate patient care and solve the problems through team discussion.

Advantages: 1. High quality comprehensive care can be provided despite a relatively high proportion of ancillary staff. 2. Each member of the team is able to participate in decision making and problem solving. 3. Each team member is able to contribute his or her own special expertise or skills in caring for the patient. 4. Improved patient satisfaction. 5. Organisational decision making occurring at the lower level. 6. Cost-effective system because it works with expected ratio of unlicensed to licensed personnel. 7. Team nursing is an effective method of patient care delivery and has been used in most inpatient and outpatient health care settings.

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Wikipedia