Collaboration among nurses when transitioning older adults between hospital and community settings: a scoping review

The transitioning of older patients between healthcare sectors requires the provision of high-quality nursing care. Collaboration among nurses is identified as an essential element of transitional care, yet nurse-nurse collaboration has received little attention.

The aim of this study was to examine the extent, range and nature of nurse-nurse collaboration when transitioning older patients between hospital and community settings, and to identify gaps in the literature.

Arksey and O'Malley's (International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 8, 2005 and 19) framework was used to undertake a scoping review to answer the research questions: how do nurses collaborate together when transitioning older patients from hospital to community settings and what are the facilitators, barriers and outcomes of nurse-nurse collaboration when transitioning older patients between sectors? The Nurse-Nurse Collaboration Scale (NNCS) subdomains informed the identification of selected studies.

Twelve papers were included with most coming from Scandinavian countries and the majority using qualitative methodologies. Communication, coordination and professionalism were found to be both facilitators and barriers of nurse-nurse collaboration. Gaps in the literature included conflict management, and the outcomes of collaboration which was only reported in one study.

The findings indicate there is limited study of collaboration among nurses when transitioning older patients between hospital and community settings. Future research should address the impact of conflict on nurses working in collaborative practice as well as conducting intervention studies to examine the outcomes of nurse-nurse collaboration.