Nurses' Lived Experience With Nurse-Physician Collaboration.

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Healthcare Collaboration
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Quality patient care necessitates effective collaboration among health professionals.
• Preventable medical errors contribute to significant mortality, with a lack of nurse-physician collaboration (NPC) identified as a factor.
• Understanding nurses' experiences with NPC is vital for improving healthcare systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore nurses' lived experiences with nurse-physician collaboration (NPC).
• To identify challenges and facilitators in NPC from the nurses' perspective.
• To inform strategies for enhancing NPC to improve patient outcomes.

Main Methods:

• A qualitative study employing Streubert's phenomenological design.
• In-depth interviews were conducted with eight nurses until data saturation was reached.
• Rigorous analysis of interview data to develop an "exhaustive description" of lived experiences.

Main Results:

• Nurses described both positive and negative experiences with nurse-physician collaboration (NPC).
• A key finding was that nurses experienced difficulties initiating NPC early in their careers, which persisted at times.
• The developed "exhaustive description" of nurses' experiences with NPC was validated by participants.

Conclusions:

• This is the first U.S. qualitative study detailing nurses' experiences with NPC.
• Findings highlight the need for improved NPC to enhance patient outcomes.
• Implications are provided for nurse educators, hospital administrators, and researchers to foster better collaboration.