A new culture bolstering collaborative behavior among nurses and physicians is needed to merge the unique strengths of both nursing and medicine professions into opportunities to improve patient outcomes. To meet this challenge, it is fundamental to comprehend the current uses of collaborative behaviors among nurses and physicians. Evidence for increasing collaboration to decrease communication error is mounting and undeniable. To identify patterns and areas for improvement, a descriptive study was used to delineate frequently used from infrequently used collaborative behaviors of nurses and physicians in order to generate data to support specific interventions for improving collaborative behavior. For the first time in the USA, the Nurse–Physician Collaboration Scale was used to measure the frequency of use of nurse–physician collaborative behaviors self-reported by nurses and physicians. The tool itself is designed to be part of an organizationsʼ ongoing action plan to improve interdisciplinary collaboration, strengthen team building among healthcare professionals and improve culture in Accountable Care Organizations (ACO). Organizations needing to identify and improve areas of communication, medication errors, patient outcomes, etc. are encouraged to implement this tool. In addition to analyzing the frequency of collaborative behaviors, the study compares levels of collaborative behavior reported by nurses and physicians in an USA acute care hospital.

Biography:
Dr. Dawn Marie Nair is an established author, educator and nurse practitioner. She is an assistant professor at St. Vincentʼs College, RN to BSN program. She holds a Doctorate degree from Case Western University and a Masterʼs degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She published her research entitled “The frequency of nurse-physician collaboration in an acute care hospital” in the Journal of Interprofessional Care, March 2012, a peer-reviewed journal. She is a manuscript reviewer for this journal.