| Course | NUR-8000 DNP Role Development |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 5 |
| Paper type | Interprofessional collaboration and safety initiative |
| Length | About 1,018 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Thomas Edison State University |
| Program | Doctor of Nursing Practice |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NUR 8000 Module 5
The Call That Came Two Hours Late: Interprofessional Team Training to Speed Rapid Response on a Cardiac Step-Down Unit
Student Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice, Thomas Edison State University
NUR-8000: DNP Role Development
Mentor Name
Month Day, Year
The Call That Came Two Hours Late: Interprofessional Team Training to Speed Rapid Response on a Cardiac Step-Down Unit
An Evening in Bed 14
One April evening, a 71-year-old man two days out from a stent grew restless and began breathing hard in Bed 14. His nurse noted a rising heart rate and paged the covering resident, who suggested waiting for the next set of vital signs. By 8 p.m. his oxygen level had dropped to 84 percent; the rapid response team came, and he left for intensive care with fluid in his lungs. He recovered, but the review found what many reviews find: the nurse was worried early, the escalation was unclear and the team did not share an understanding of how sick he was. A review of our rapid response calls for the year found several similar delays. This paper analyzes the problem as one of interprofessional teamwork and proposes a solution.
The Problem as a Team Problem
Most delayed escalations are not failures of individual knowledge. The nurse in this case recognized the change, and the resident knew the signs of pulmonary edema. The failure lay between them: a page that did not convey urgency, a response that did not invite disagreement and no agreed rule for when to call the rapid response team regardless of the physician's view. Weller et al. (2014) describe the conditions that effective teams need: shared mental models, mutual respect and trust, and closed-loop communication. They also describe why these are hard to achieve in health care, grouping the barriers as educational, psychological and organizational. Rank and separate professional worlds keep juniors quiet, and arrangements such as a resident covering patients he has never met widen the gap.
Each barrier is visible in the case. The nurse and the resident had never trained together and did not share a picture of what pulmonary edema after a stent looks like in its first hour, an educational barrier. The nurse felt she could not go around the resident to the rapid response team, a psychological barrier rooted in hierarchy. The resident was covering forty patients across three units and had never met this one, an organizational barrier. A solution that addresses only one of the three would leave the other two in place.
Evidence That Team Training Works
The strongest evidence comes from the Veterans Health Administration. Neily et al. (2010) studied a national medical team training program for surgical teams, which included preparation, a day of training on communication and teamwork tools, and follow-up coaching. Surgical deaths fell by about a fifth a year at the 74 trained hospitals, against well under a tenth at the 34 still waiting. Once trained and untrained hospitals were matched, the trained ones improved roughly half again as much, and every added quarter of the program brought deaths down further, the kind of dose pattern that makes cause more believable.
Weaver et al. (2014) gathered two years of team training research and found that classroom and simulation programs alike sharpened communication and coordination, with ten studies reporting better clinical care or patient results, deaths included. Larger effects were reported for bundled interventions that combined training with tools and organizational changes to support the new behaviors in daily work.
| Source | Setting | Key finding |
|---|---|---|
| Neily et al. (2010) | 108 VA surgical facilities | 18 percent mortality reduction with training, dose-response |
| Weaver et al. (2014) | Synthesis of recent studies | Better teamwork processes; bundled programs had larger effects |
| Weller et al. (2014) | Review of barriers | Educational, psychological and organizational barriers must all be addressed |
The Proposed Initiative
Following the evidence that bundled programs work best, the initiative has four parts.
First, interprofessional training. Everyone who answers a deteriorating patient, nurses, residents, hospitalists, respiratory therapists and the response team, will spend one afternoon in simulation together, practicing SBAR calls, read-backs and an agreed phrase that lets anyone halt the room and look again.
Second, a clear escalation rule. The unit will adopt criteria under which a nurse calls the rapid response team directly, without needing a physician's agreement, including a nurse's worry about a patient.
Third, organizational changes. Covering residents will receive a brief handoff on step-down patients at the start of each evening, and a daily huddle at 7 p.m. will identify patients at risk.
Fourth, coaching. Charge nurses and chief residents will be trained as coaches who reinforce the tools in real situations for six months after the training.
Measuring Success
Process measures will include the share of staff trained, huddle completion and observed use of structured communication during rapid response calls. The outcome measures are the time from the first documented abnormal vital sign to the rapid response call, unplanned transfers to intensive care and cardiac arrests on the unit. A survey of teamwork climate before and after training will capture changes in how staff experience collaboration.
The DNP Leader's Role
My role is to bring the professions together, which requires partnership with the residency program director and the hospitalist chief, to secure time for training and to protect the escalation rule when a nurse calls a rapid response that turns out not to be needed. A nurse who is criticized for calling early will not call early again. Leadership support for the rule is the most important single factor in whether it works.
I will therefore review every rapid response call that does not lead to a transfer in the first three months, not to judge the nurse but to thank her and to learn whether the criteria need adjusting. Residents who are bypassed by a direct call will be told why the rule exists, and the residency director has agreed to include it in orientation.
Conclusion
Delayed rapid response calls on my unit reflect team failures: unclear escalation, hierarchy and covering physicians at a distance. Evidence from the Veterans Health Administration and a synthesis of team training studies support a bundled program of training, clear rules, organizational changes and coaching. As a DNP leader, my task is to build the partnership across professions that the initiative depends on and to protect the nurses who use it.
References
Neily, J., Mills, P. D., Young-Xu, Y., Carney, B. T., West, P., Berger, D. H., Mazzia, L. M., Paull, D. E., & Bagian, J. P. (2010). Association between implementation of a medical team training program and surgical mortality. JAMA, 304(15), 1693-1700. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2010.1506
Weaver, S. J., Dy, S. M., & Rosen, M. A. (2014). Team-training in healthcare: A narrative synthesis of the literature. BMJ Quality and Safety, 23(5), 359-372. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2013-001848
Weller, J., Boyd, M., & Cumin, D. (2014). Teams, tribes and patient safety: Overcoming barriers to effective teamwork in healthcare. Postgraduate Medical Journal, 90(1061), 149-154. https://doi.org/10.1136/postgradmedj-2012-131168
NUR 8000 Module 5 instructions, in plain terms
Working across professions for safer care closes TESU's NUR-8000 description, and with no public syllabus, this fifth module has the student design a team initiative for her own unit. Expect a paper that identifies a safety problem rooted in teamwork, explains it with evidence on what effective teams need, reviews interventions that improve collaboration and proposes an initiative with measures. Some classrooms ask you to analyze a case using a teamwork framework or to reflect on a collaboration you led. Check the directions. Choose a problem that involves more than one profession, and include those professions in the solution, not only as recipients of training. Give every element of the initiative a barrier it is meant to remove.
How this NUR 8000 Module 5 example is built
The paper starts with a patient whose rapid response call came two hours after his nurse first worried. The problem is framed as a team failure, using a review of barriers to effective teamwork. Evidence from the Veterans Health Administration and a synthesis of team training studies follows, with a three-row table. The proposed initiative has four parts, interprofessional simulation training, a clear escalation rule, organizational changes and coaching, each tied to a barrier. Process and outcome measures are defined, including time from first abnormal sign to the call. The director's job of building partnerships and shielding nurses who call early is spelled out before the closing summary.
NUR 8000 Module 5 rubric: what earns full marks
Collaboration papers are graded on whether the problem is analyzed as a team issue, whether evidence supports the chosen intervention and whether the initiative is designed to address the barriers identified. Mentors look for involvement of all relevant professions, a bundled approach rather than training alone and measures of both process and outcome. The leader's role in building partnerships and sustaining change should be specific. Study results reported exactly as published, in APA, round out the grade. Mentors also credit a plan for responding when the new escalation rule is used and the patient turns out to be stable. A table of evidence is often credited if it includes settings and effect sizes rather than only titles.
NUR 8000 Module 5 help from the desk
The most common weakness is proposing education for nurses alone to fix a problem that involves several professions. Train together and include physicians and others. Another frequent problem is relying on training without organizational changes, which the evidence shows are needed for lasting effects. Tie each part of your initiative to a barrier. Measure the time to escalation, not just satisfaction with the training. Describe how leaders will protect staff who speak up. Report the effect sizes of the studies you cite. Decide in advance how leaders will respond when a call proves unnecessary. The desk can draft your NUR-8000 collaboration paper around a safety problem from your own setting, with the first draft free.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Thomas Edison State University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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NUR 8000 Module 5 questions, answered
Where can I find a free NUR 8000 Module 5 sample paper?
This page shows the full paper. A DNP leader proposes interprofessional team training to speed rapid response calls on a cardiac step-down unit.
Does team training reduce patient deaths?
In the Veterans Health Administration, facilities that completed a medical team training program had an 18 percent reduction in annual surgical mortality, compared with 7 percent in facilities not yet trained.
What do effective health care teams need?
Shared mental models, mutual respect and trust, and closed-loop communication, along with organizational support that brings team members together.
Why do nurses delay calling rapid response teams?
A nurse who sees the decline may still wait if rank discourages her, if no rule says she may call directly or if the covering doctor has never met the patient.
What makes team training more effective?
Bundled programs that combine training with tools, organizational changes and coaching to support new behaviors in daily work have shown larger effects.