Abstract
Background: Strong interprofessional communication techniques have been linked to increased teamwork and collaboration among physicians and nurses in the critical care setting proven to improve nurse job satisfaction and autonomy.|Purpose: The aim was to implement nurse led rounds in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit to improve interprofessional communication and collaboration.|Sample/Setting: A 140 bed freestanding Children’s Hospital in the Midwest, in a diagnostically mixed 27-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.|Methods: The project was implemented utilizing the PDCA quality improvement process. A survey monkey was sent after the second and third PDCA cycle to measure team satisfaction with the new rounding process and tool. The Assessment of Interprofessional Team Collaboration Scale for practitioners, a valid and reliable survey was sent pre and post implementation to measure interventional impact on interprofessional communication and collaboration.|Results: No overall correlation was found between nurse led rounds and improvement in interprofessional partnership, collaboration, and communication. However, an improvement in median score was seen in interprofessional partnership (3.9-4.0) and communication (3.3-3.6). Nursing as a discipline indicated a mediac score increase from 3.6-4.2. Overall, 95% of the interprofessional team agreed that nurse led rounds was comprehensive, and 89% agreed that the information was appropriate for surgical rounding.|Conclusion: The overall results do not support the utilization of nurse led rounds as as strong indicator to improve overall interprofessional team perception, but do indicate an increase in the perception of communication and partnership within the critical care setting. The results may be able to predict the positive effects of nurse led actions as a way to improve interprofessional information delivery. In addition, nurse led projects can positively impact nursing perception of interprofessional communication and collaboration.