Drowning: Interdisciplinary Collaboration (Nursing)

00:01 Interdisciplinary collaboration is the key to the patient receiving the most excellent and safe care.

00:07 Drowning is no exception.

00:09 So let's take a look. I want you to picture a victim or a client.

00:13 Let's say they're in a home pool and they've just been found.

00:16 Let's look at all the team members that are involved in the rescue and the support. So first off, who's going to be there? Are the first responders, the emergency services.

00:26 They're going to perform all the initial rescue and resuscitation.

00:30 They're going to transport the client to the hospital.

00:33 During that time, they're going to be making decisions and talking with the physician.

00:36 Then they're going to hand off report to the emergency medical staff.

00:41 Now you're in the E.R.

00:42 and the emergency medical physician is going to do the acute assessment and work to stabilize the patient.

00:48 They're going to do the initial treatment and planning.

00:50 So there's our first two team members.

00:52 There's a third one. There's the respiratory therapist.

00:55 Now they are the kings and queens of the airway.

00:59 They're going to oversee airway management.

01:01 They're going to do the ventilator settings and adjustments as ordered by the physician.

01:05 They're going to administer breathing treatments and oxygen therapy and help you monitor their respiratory progress.

01:12 Now, if things are pretty severe, they may even call a neurologist or a neurosurgeon that can help manage the neurological complications if there are some.

01:20 They're also going to give guidance on the appropriate neuroprotective strategies that need to be put into place.

01:25 Now, after the initial crisis, physical therapy and occupational therapy can become involved, if needed.

01:32 So physical therapy can do things like early mobility assessment.

01:35 They can outperform pulmonary rehab, and they can advise and help lead and guide strengthening exercises.

01:42 Now of course this is not happening in the E.R..

01:45 This is after they're through the crisis and we're working towards them being discharged home now. Occupational therapy.

01:51 They are the unsung heroes of the hospital.

01:54 They help with activities of daily living.

01:56 They'll come in and do an assessment.

01:58 Can the patient feed themselves? Can they dress themselves? Can they bathe themselves? Can they use the restroom by themselves? What assistive things do they need? Truly are the activities of daily living.

02:10 They can also help with cognitive rehab, and they can help with equipment that might be needed to help make the activities of daily living more successful for the client.

02:19 Another team member could be called in if the patient is having some difficulty with swallowing. If they're having difficulty with swallowing, we're worried about aspiration pneumonia.

02:29 So a speech therapist might be called in to do a swallowing eval.

02:33 If the patient is having difficulty with communication, they can also do a communication assessment.

02:38 And they can perform cognitive linguistic therapy to help them with communication. Now, the next two team members I want to recommend might be the same person. Some hospitals combine the role of social work and case manager. For the sake of our conversation here, I'm going to break them into two separate people or professions.

02:58 So social workers are experts at family support.

03:03 I want to stop and emphasize that they are brilliant at this.

03:07 They are trained in family dynamics, so they are really good at family support and resources.

03:14 A social worker could be involved with this client from the moment they're brought into the E.R., and they're family all the way through to discharge.

03:22 They're really good at helping with resources and discharge planning, and they know a lot about the community resources that are available.

03:29 A case manager is managing the care, coordinating the care.

03:33 But this is more of what kind of benefits the hospital write, because they're coordinating with the insurance and they're managing the resources that are used for this client.

03:42 They're actually watching the length of stay, making sure everything is being done to make that efficient.

03:48 They'll also be involved in the transition planning.

03:51 So if they're broken into two different people social workers, family support, family dynamics, helping them get resources in the community case manager is going to coordinate the care, talk with all the team members, work with the insurance company and utilization review and help with the transition planning.

04:08 Now, a child life specialist is meant for pediatric patients so they can provide age appropriate support.

04:15 They're great at play therapy.

04:16 They're usually super fun people, and they can help the child deal with fear and anxiety and getting ready for procedures.

04:24 Wow. That may seem like a lot of team members.

04:27 And it is. Not all patients will see all of these team members, but it's important as a nurse that you help coordinate the collaboration and interdisciplinary care for your patient.