Let’s Work Together: Collaboration is the key
Lucia Lombardo
American Sentinel University

Abstract
Maximizing nurse-physician collaboration holds promise for improving patient care and creating satisfying work roles. Among the several factors that influence collaboration, such as power and gender, it is the lack of communication skills that the nurse manager of the progressive unit that is taken into consideration by the author, recognizes as the one most affecting the collaboration nurses-physicians. How can the nursing and medical staff collaborate more effectively to improve patient outcomes and at the same time increase nursing job satisfaction? The author highlights the steps required to initiate a change toward a collaborative workplace through the use of an attentive communication style. Once background research is done, the decision about the need of the change has been reached, informal leaders support gained, and plan of action drawn, the model developed by Kurt Lewin in implementing the changes are adopted. In developing the change process through the unfreezing, moving and refreezing stages, the author analyzes the rationale for the change, the benefits that the organizations, staff members, and patients will gain from the change, the role of the change agents, the proposed timelines, and the measures of success of the change through the plan for evaluation.

Let’s Work Together: Collaboration is the key
The Progressive ICU unit in consideration is part of a small hospital and the majority of the nursing staff are new nurses that have about a year or less of experience. Nurse-physician relationships are one of the most important drivers of the work environment (Smith, 2004), and the nurse manager is aware that the inexperience and professional insecurities of the new nurses has a negative impact on their relationship with the physicians, and