For this assessment, you will create a 2-4 page report on an interview you have conducted with a health care professional. You will identify an issue from the discussion that could be improved with an interdisciplinary approach and review best practices and evidence to address the issue.

nterview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification

I interviewed a registered nurse working in the general ward unit of a health care facility. The nurse provides care to inpatients. The care entails closely monitoring and assessing their condition to determine their prognosis and administration of medications and other healthcare interventions. The nurse reported that she enjoys working at the facility because the nurse staffing ratios are optimized. However, she noted that there had been an increase in ventilator-associated pneumonia in patients who require mechanical ventilation at the hospital. She indicated that interprofessional collaboration had not been embraced in its entirety. She acknowledged that an interprofessional effort would improve the quality of services she offers at the hospital. She pointed out organizational and team-level factors that impede interprofessional collaboration.

The team of healthcare providers at the facility lacks clear and concise goals and objectives that should be achieved. Furthermore, they rarely have interprofessional collaboration training. Consequently, this has created role ambiguity for the interprofessional team members. The nurse reported that the administration is not research-oriented and doesn’t provide regular feedback on the performance of employees. She said the organization used to award best-performing departments regarding quality-of-service provision and patient satisfaction. However, this tradition was eroded. Accordingly, this has created a culture that fails to embrace interprofessional collaboration in healthcare service delivery.

The nurse reported that she concentrates on her unit and rarely collaborates with other healthcare providers. Before the interview, I developed my structured questions to ensure sufficient information was collected. During the interview, I embraced active listening, avoided disrupting the interviewee, and recorded the feedback in my notebook to demonstrate interest.

Issue Identification

The nurse reported that the incidences of ventilator-associated pneumonia have been on the rise. Essentially, ventilator-associated pneumonia is common in patients receiving mechanical ventilation. This nosocomial disease is prevalent in patients undergoing endotracheal intubation. It occurs within or more than forty-eight hours after patient admission (Martin-Loeches et al., 2018). Ventilator-associated pneumonia has increased patient morbidity and mortality rates. Patients are forced to stay longer and pay extra treatment costs (Sousa et al., 2019). An interdisciplinary collaborative approach can help to minimize the prevalence of ventilator-associated pneumonia. Collaboration among physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare team members will ensure appropriate strategies are implemented. They include proper patient oral hygiene, the presence of the CASS tube, minimizing proton pump inhibitors, and subglottic suctioning (Álvarez-Lerma et al., 2018). According to Sousa et al. (2019), other methods that can be adopted after research and collaboration include placing patients in a semi-recumbent posture and minimizing the duration of mechanical ventilation.

Change Theories That Could Lead to an Interdisciplinary Solution

Havelock’s change model will be used to create an interdisciplinary solution. This change model has six stages (Udod & Wagner, 2018). The first phase is pre-contemplation and relationship building, where the necessity for change is determined. The second phase is problem diagnosis and exclusive contemplation, where the relevance and urgency of change are selected (Udod & Wagner, 2018). The next phase is acquiring resources for change and involves active research for creating change. The next step is pathway selection, during which a specific facilitator of change is selected and implemented. The fifth phase is establishing and accepting the change (Udod & Wagner, 2018). The last phase is maintenance and separation, during which follow-up ensures the organizational culture embraces the transition.

This change theory will promote self-awareness and self-direction among interprofessional team members. It will enable them to recognize ventilator-associated pneumonia’s clinical and economic impacts, plan and research evidence-based preventive strategies, implement them, and monitor their effectiveness. This change benefits ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) because it will ensure that the best preventive evidence-based practices are adopted. Furthermore, the change theory will ensure that VAP incidences are significantly lowered due to the follow-up provided in the maintenance and separation phase.