I interviewed a former nursing colleague, Emily Wood, who now works at Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health in New Jersey, a healthcare organization that provides care services to a large portion of New Jersey community members. This facility is also the biggest academic healthcare system in the state, providing comprehensive healthcare services as well as bringing the best of research and teaching, academic medicine, and community partners together to improve health outcomes for individuals and communities. Emily works as a registered nurse in the cardiothoracic ICU, and her roles include overseeing the nursing department during her shift and providing nursing care to patients with critical heart issues and conditions. She is trained in providing comprehensive care to patients needing medical or surgical treatment for conditions like chest trauma, heart failure, heart disease, and lung conditions in ICU settings. Besides, she is responsible for providing respiratory support, administering medications, monitoring patients’ vital signs, and performing advanced interventions, including vasoactive medication titration, hemodynamic monitoring, and mechanical ventilation.

During my interview with Emily, I enquired whether her organization was facing any current issues or had experienced any in the past. She stated that one of her unit’s major current issues was getting qualified nursing staff to care for patients. The unit is understaffed and overstretched and requires the charge nurse for all shifts (Emily is the charge nurse during her shift) to assign duties to nurses from other departments to maintain minimal staffing. However, the problem with this strategy is getting less qualified nurses for the ICU. With this problem, Emily and other nurses have to work extra hours or even an extra shift to assist other nurses in caring for patients and also directing other less qualified nurses on what to do. In addition, this problem has led to poor coordination and communication with other professionals in the unit including cardiologists, physicians, and other support staff as nurses are overloaded and burned out, which can put patient safety at risk through medical errors.

While the organization has tried hiring more registered nurses for the unit, it appears that qualified nurses have failed to apply for the positions. The unit has been getting new nurses, but due to inadequate training, the charge nurse has to assign qualified nurses to train the less qualified ones. This wastes a lot of time in the unit and affects their ability to serve patients’ needs effectively hence the need for interdisciplinary collaboration.

Issue Identification

The issue of understaffing and poor coordination in the cardiothoracic ICU is an interdisciplinary problem that requires teams such as nurses, cardiologists, physicians, and other support staff to work collaboratively to find ways to address this problem. With less qualified staff, the unit is overstretched, which affects the ability to attend to patients’ needs. As described by Emily, the overload in the ICU has resulted in burnout among nurses as the department continues to find qualified registered nurses. In the ICU section, patient safety is of utmost concern for healthcare professionals. However, various factors can compromise patient safety, including ineffective teamwork, psychological and physical overload of health professionals, and failed organizational processes (Garcia et al., 2019). The healthcare organization has failed to adopt effective hiring strategies to reach out to a diverse range of registered nurses. As a result, the ICU section has missed out on qualified nurses who could resolve the issue of understaffing.

While there has not been an immediate solution to the hiring process, the current personnel are overloaded and work extra shifts, leading to burnout and poor communication and coordination with other health professionals. Therefore, this issue requires an immediate solution using the interdisciplinary approach. This approach is suitable since it entails combining the expertise of professionals from various disciplines to provide effective and comprehensive solutions to complex issues. By bringing together health professionals with diverse perspectives, an interdisciplinary team can provide a more effective and holistic approach to care, ultimately resulting in efficient use of healthcare resources, improved quality of care, and better patient outcomes.

Change Theories That Could Lead to an Interdisciplinary Solution

The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle is a quality improvement framework that is utilized in healthcare environments and can be applied to inform interdisciplinary solutions to the issues the cardiothoracic ICU section faces at the healthcare organization. The staff shortage experienced in ICU