Abstract

Nursing and the pharmacy department play a significant role in the delivery of quality health care. The relationship between nursing and the pharmacy staff is interdependence, making it extremely important for these two departments to communicate. In the absence of effective communication, misunderstanding between nurses and pharmacists could lead to unnecessary delays in the quality of service that the patients receive. The Veterans Affairs North Texas Health Care Systems (VANTHCS) devised a Drug Policy and Procedure (DPAP) on August 14th, 2013, governing the control and utilization of drugs for both inpatients and outpatients (North Texas Health Care Systems Memorandum No. 119-01, 2013).

North Texas Health Care System drug policy and procedures established that the pharmacy should provide stat medication orders within 30 minutes, now dose medications within 60 minutes, and routine medications within two hours (North Texas Health Care System, 2013). The purpose of the PICOT question "In acute care nurses and pharmacy department personnel (P) how does an educational program to facilitate effective communication (I) as compared to no educational program (C) affect nurse pharmacy communication (O) within three months (T)"? is to improve communication and collaboration between nursing and pharmacy personnel, which facilitates better understanding between these two departments and enhance the quality patient care delivery. Poor collaboration and communication among health care professionals could lead to dire consequences, including disrupted and delayed care (Celio et al., 2018). Professionally, it only makes sense that nurses and the pharmacy personnel establish and maintain an open level of communication, understanding, and collaboration to improve the quality of service provided to our veterans.

Date of publication

Spring 4-30-2021

Document Type

MSN Capstone Project

Language

english

Persistent identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10950/3708

Degree

MSN Nursing Administration

Included in

Nursing Commons

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