NURS FPX 4005 Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification (Capella)

Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification

NURS-FPX4005: Nursing Leadership: Focusing on People, Processes, and Organizations

Interview Summary

In this assessment, I conducted a semi-structured interview with Maria N., who is a charge nurse in a 250-bed community hospital that provides acute, surgical and outpatient services. My approach was founded on an open-ended questioning strategy based on the guidelines of Xu et al. (2025) about qualitative interviews and served to make the discussion as flexible and comprehensive as possible. The responsibilities of Maria included organizing the daily patient flow, managing staffing, overseeing inter-unit communication, and serving as the interface between bedside nurses and the administrative staff. In the interview, she noted that the urgent problem at the organization is frequent delays in discharging patients as a result of failure to have consistent interdisciplinary communication among nursing, case management, and the medical team. These delays have also caused congestion in the emergency department, increased length of stay, and frustration by the staff members who feel silenced during handoff. She noted that the leadership had attempted to resolve this issue in the past, such as adopting standardized discharge checklist but this was not fully successful because it did not bring on board all the concerned departments. The other issue that Maria described is based on the idea that teamwork is appreciated, yet it never works in reality due to the hierarchical nature of communication, siloed working process, and interdisciplinary rounding. She presented several instances of her own experience including how there was an incomplete clinical update given to case managers, resulting in poorly coordinated discharge planning. The interview identified an organizational challenge that requires a more integrated and participatory approach towards discharge planning with evidence-based strategies that can reinforce communication and accountability across disciplines.

Issue Identification

From the interview, the absence of effective communication and coordination in discharge planning is the core problem that can be addressed with an evidence-based interdisciplinary solution. This problem can be tackled with the help of an interdisciplinary solution since it involves several stakeholders that control various parts of the discharge process (Nasiri et al., 2022). Nurses offer clinical updates, physicians decide on medical preparedness, case managers organize services and therapists check functional requirements. Most of these roles do not sit well with each other, which leads to delays that have adverse patient outcomes and system flow. It is reasonable to use an interdisciplinary approach since it is already proven that discharge planning is highly efficient in cases of shared decision-making, real-time communication, and joint problem solving between different professionals in the healthcare setting. Isolated interventions will remain insufficient without a coordinated system, as witnessed in the organization’s past efforts, which failed to incorporate the views of key team members and their perspectives on the organization. Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification Capella University – NURS-FPX4005: Nursing Leadership: Focusing on People, Processes, and Organizations

Change Theories That Could Lead to an Interdisciplinary Solution

The Change Theory by Kurt Lewin is one of the theories of change that can be used in creating an interdisciplinary solution, and it incorporates the phases of unfreeze, change, and refreeze. The theory is heavily implemented in healthcare research and offers a systematic procedure to the implementation of organizational changes that necessitate the change in behavior and communication patterns (Barrow & Annamaraju, 2022). The model created by Lewin is especially applicable to the identified issue, as ensuring better discharge coordination will necessitate the disruption of old practice habits of siloed practices and the creation of new interdisciplinary routines that will undergo consistent reinforcement. For instance, one of the stages of unfreezing might include bringing in data regarding discharge delays in order to create awareness and inspire change. The changing phase might entail the establishment of interdisciplinary rounds every day with well-established roles for each team member. The refreezing phase would involve the implementation of the new process as a part of policy and the assessment of the continuing adherence. The literature source, like that of Barrow and Annamaraju (2022), is a reliable and up-to-date piece of evidence that can substantiate the idea of the applicability of Lewin in the healthcare environment because it is effective in enhancing sustainable collaboration and communication. The source is peer reviewed and provides an evidence-based guideline on the change implementation process. Due to the predictability and systemic quality of the discharge-planning problem, the Lewin theory fits the requirements of the organization perfectly and provides an effective roadmap to change.

Leadership Strategies That Could Lead to an Interdisciplinary Solution

One of the strategies that might help achieve discharge-planning improvements across disciplines is transformational leadership. Transformational leaders inspire and motivate teams by facilitating a collective purpose, promoting professional independence, and open communication (Ystaas et al., 2023). This method plays a significant role in addressing the issues that the interviewee raised regarding hierarchical barriers and lack of engagement among colleagues. According to Sulosaari et al. (2022), transformational leadership would allow nurse leaders and department managers to exemplify teamwork, encourage staff involvement in the decision-making process, and develop a culture where interdisciplinary contributions are equally considered. The provided articles are reliable and up-to date as they provided evidence-based peer-reviewed research demonstrating the validity of transformational leadership as an empirical method that enhances team performance, communication, and organizational commitment. The strategy is most applicable to the facility since the problem under consideration is one of behavioral change, team cohesion and morale, which can be positively influenced by a leadership style that focuses on relationships and empowerment. Transformational strategies allow the leader to create an environment where interdisciplinary discharge planning is not only accepted but also welcomed.

Collaboration Approaches for Interdisciplinary Teams

Structured interdisciplinary bedside rounds (SIBR) and Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation (SBAR)-based models are evidence-based collaboration practices that might enhance the nature of interdisciplinary discharge planning. It is evident from studies such as those by Heip et al. (2020) that SIBR improves teamwork and patient satisfaction through lessening length of stay and ensuring all disciplines meet simultaneously to discuss patient progress and plan discharge requirements. This practice would address fragmented patterns of communication that the interviewee has highlighted and create predictable communication avenues. Similarly, SBAR framework provides a universal means of delivering clinical data, improving the insufficient ambiguity and clarity between disciplines (Shrivastava et al., 2025). These articles are credible because they offer current evidence-based research to prove the usefulness and practicality of these strategies by demonstrating improved outcomes in hospitals that apply structured communication and collaboration strategies. The strategies are applicable to the identified issue because they directly address the main source of the problem, which is the inconsistent communication and disorganized participation. Structured interdisciplinary meetings and standardized tools of communication should be introduced to facilitate a shared vision of what discharge goals are, reduce unnecessary delays and result in a more integrated organizational culture.

Conclusion

The interview proved to be useful in establishing new knowledge about communication problems that affect discharge coordination and the need to implement a structured, evidence-based interdisciplinary approach. Having identified ineffective communication as one of the main issues, it is clear sustainable change would require organizational change and teamwork enhancement supported by proven theories, management skills, and collaboration models. This data reveals that the application of The Change Theory by Lewin, the synthesis of transformational leadership, and the implementation of institutional- level collaboration tools such as SIBR and SBAR are capable to improve communication across disciplines thus improving patient care. These results provide good groundwork upon which an effective interdisciplinary improvement plan can be created to improve outcomes Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification Capella University – NURS-FPX4005: Nursing Leadership: Focusing on People, Processes, and Organizations.

References

Barrow, J. M., & Annamaraju, P. (2022, September 18). Change management in health care . National Library of Medicine; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459380/

Heip, T., Hecke, A. V., Malfait, S., Biesen, W. V., & Eeckloo, K. (2020). The effects of interdisciplinary bedside rounds on patient centeredness, quality of care, and team collaboration. Journal of Patient Safety , 18 (1). https://doi.org/10.1097/pts.0000000000000695

Nasiri, A., Akbari, A., & Jani, H. (2022). Challenges and implementation strategies of the discharge planning according to the nurses’ experiences: A qualitative study. Modern Care Journal , 19 (2). https://doi.org/10.5812/modernc-121663

Shrivastava, S. R., Chong, S. V., & Bobhate, P. S. (2025). Facilitating effective communication through the adoption of SBAR tool in medical training. Journal of Education and Health Promotion , 14 (1). https://doi.org/10.4103/jehp.jehp_1213_24

Sulosaari, V., Kosklin, R., & Munter, J. D. (2022). Nursing leaders as visionaries and enablers of action. Seminars in Oncology Nursing , 39 (1), 151365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soncn.2022.151365

Xu, Z., Wang, Y., & Qian, Y. (2025). The design and application of in-depth interviews in primary care research. Chinese General Practice Journal , 2 (2), 100062. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cgpj.2025.100062

Ystaas, L. M. K., Nikitara, M., Ghobrial, S., Latzourakis, E., Polychronis, G., & Constantinou, C. S. (2023). The impact of transformational leadership in the nursing work environment and patients’ outcomes: A systematic review. Nursing Reports , 13 (3), 1271–1290. https://doi.org/10.3390/nursrep13030108 Interview and Interdisciplinary Issue Identification Capella University – NURS-FPX4005: Nursing Leadership: Focusing on People, Processes, and Organizations