Collaboration Amongst Nurses

Abstract

Problems and mistakes in communication and collaboration between the health team are the most important factor in medical errors. It is stated that medical errors increase mortality, morbidity and cost while at the same time cause prolonged hospitalization. Nurses are health personnel who spend the most time with patients. Therefore, collaboration amongst nurses is important to improve the quality of patient care, to prevent the occurrence of medical errors and to improve patient satisfaction. Collaboration amongst nurses is described by the scale and sub-dimensions developed by Dougherty and Larson. According to Dougherty and Larson, nurse collaboration includes professionalism, communication, process sharing, coordination and problem solving. Collaboration amongst nurses is an important component of quality in health care and nursing services. It is suggested that managers should not ignore the collaboration amongst nurses and take initiatives to upgrade.

Keywords

• collaboration
• communication
• coordination
• nurse