I only work night shift so my experience in interprofessional collaboration is different than my dayshift. Dayshift’s interprofessional collaboration team involves the hospitalist, social worker, pharmacist, nutritionist, charge nurse, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. Meanwhile, nightshift’s interprofessional collaboration team is the hospitalist, pharmacist, respiratory therapy, and charge nurse. The most common transition that I participate in is hospital to hospital, this is done when a patient needs a higher level of care.

The nurse has an important role in patient transitions. The nurse coordinates care between all practices and arranges discharge. “Coordinating care and recognizing a practice issue that may need changed involves nurse collaboration with many colleagues” (Chamberlain College of Nursing, 2022). The discharges I do on nightshift are usually on critically ill patients. My role is helping stabilize a patient for transfer (usually by helicopter), getting transfer paperwork ready, notifying the family, giving report to the medflight crew, and calling the hospital to give report to the nurse who will take over care.

A gap that happens during the transition of care is information being missed from physician to nurse. For example, the nurse will know that a patient is going to be transferred however, the physician hasn’t said if the patient has been accepted to another facility or by another physician. So, the nurse is left not knowing where the patient will go, and the patient and family are anxious about not knowing where they are going. Some hospitalists have started doing group reports to prevent this gap. When a medflight crew has arrived the hospitalist and nurse do report together to ensure information is not missed.

Chamberlain College of Nursing. (2022). NR-451 Week 5 Lesson: Foundational concepts [Online lesson]. Downers Grove, IL: DeVry Education Group