Who I Need Before I Need Them: A Collaboration and Professional Network Plan for an ICU Nurse Manager Beginning Doctoral Study, Built on Evidence About Interprofessional Work and Mentoring
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
DNP/700: DNP Expectations Seminar
Week 3 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The author is a composite doctoral student written for a model paper.
I manage a 24-bed medical intensive care unit. My unit's rate of central line infections has risen this year, and I suspect that my DNP project will address it. I have learned in management that a change on my unit succeeds only when pharmacy, infection prevention, the physicians and the nurses all want it. This paper examines evidence about interprofessional collaboration and mentoring and presents my plan for the network I will need before I need it.
What Collaboration Interventions Achieve
In their Cochrane update, Reeves et al. (2017) examined workplace strategies meant to strengthen teamwork across professions, drawing on nine randomized studies with 6,540 participants across primary, hospital and community settings. The interventions included externally facilitated team activities, interprofessional rounds, meetings and checklists. Their conclusion was that these approaches might produce small gains in selected outcomes, such as functional status in stroke patients, but the certainty of evidence was low and meta-analysis was not possible.
What That Means for Me
The review does not show that collaboration is unimportant; it shows that specific collaboration interventions have been hard to study and their effects are modest. For my purposes, it means collaboration should be designed deliberately, with clear structures such as rounds or checklists, and that I should measure whether it changes practice rather than assuming it does.
The Keystone Lesson
In my own field, the best-known example of collaboration improving outcomes is the Michigan Keystone project. Pronovost et al. (2006) reported that 103 ICUs using a bundle of evidence-based insertion practices, a checklist and a unit culture program cut their mean rate of catheter-related bloodstream infection by more than four-fifths over a year and a half of follow-up. Nurses in that work were empowered to stop line insertions when steps were missed. Its lesson for me is that the checklist mattered less than the relationships that made nurses able to use it.
Collaboration is not a meeting I schedule when my project begins; it is trust I have to earn before I ask anyone to change.
What Mentoring Achieves
Sambunjak et al. (2006) systematically reviewed 39 studies of mentoring in academic medicine and found that mentorship was reported to influence personal development, career guidance, career choice and research productivity, including publication and grant success. They also found that fewer than half of medical students, and in some fields fewer than 20% of faculty, had a mentor, that women reported more difficulty finding mentors and that the evidence came mostly from cross-sectional surveys. Mentoring appears valuable but is not guaranteed; it must be sought.
Mapping My Network
I group the people I need into three circles: the university, my hospital and the profession.
University
My faculty advisor and course faculty will shape my writing and project. I plan to meet my advisor within the first month to discuss my interests. I will also connect with the nursing librarian for search strategies and join a small study group of three classmates for weekly peer review.
Hospital
My project will need an infection preventionist, a critical care pharmacist, an intensivist champion, the vascular access team and at least two staff nurse champions. It will also need my director's support and access to infection data. I plan to meet each of these people individually over the next two months, not to ask for help yet, but to learn what they see as the causes of our infections and what they would want from a project.
The Profession
I will join the local chapter of my national critical care nursing association and attend one meeting per quarter, where I can meet managers who have reduced line infections. I will also identify a DNP-prepared nurse leader outside my hospital who can serve as a mentor for doctoral development, not only for the project.
Choosing a Mentor
Given the evidence that mentoring supports development but is not always available (Sambunjak et al., 2006), I will ask directly rather than wait. I want a mentor who has completed a DNP, led change in an acute care setting and will give me honest feedback. I plan to ask our chief nursing officer, who completed a DNP three years ago, for a monthly 30-minute meeting.
A Second Mentor for the Project
Beyond a doctoral mentor, I need a content mentor for the project itself. Our hospital epidemiologist has published on device-related infections and has agreed to meet with me each quarter to review my data plan. Two mentors with different strengths give me both career guidance and technical depth, and they reduce my reliance on any one person.
Being a Collaborator
Collaboration is reciprocal. I will offer my unit's data, my time on hospital committees and my help with others' projects. I will also acknowledge my collaborators' contributions in any presentation or paper.
Peers as Collaborators
Classmates are part of my network too. My study group includes a public health nurse and an emergency department educator, who see problems from angles I do not. Peer review of drafts, shared search strategies and honest feedback before faculty review are forms of collaboration that improve my work and theirs.
Learning From Failed Collaboration
Two years ago, I tried to introduce a new sedation protocol without involving pharmacy early. The pharmacists raised concerns late, and the rollout stalled for four months. That experience taught me that partners consulted at the start become co-owners, while partners informed at the end become critics.
Barriers
Time is my largest barrier. Physicians and pharmacists are busy, and so am I. I will use existing meetings, such as the critical care committee, rather than creating new ones, and I will keep requests specific and short, with a clear statement of what I need and by when.
Staff Nurses as Partners
The nurses who insert and maintain central lines every day know where the process breaks down. I plan to hold two informal lunch conversations with night and day staff to hear their views on dressing changes, line access and daily necessity review. Their insights will shape the project, and involving them early will make them champions rather than subjects of change.
Measuring My Network
Within twelve months, I will have met each named hospital partner, attended four professional chapter meetings, established a monthly mentoring meeting and completed two peer reviews with my study group. I will review this plan with my advisor each term.
Conclusion
Evidence suggests that structured collaboration interventions may modestly improve practice, though the evidence is uncertain (Reeves et al., 2017), and that mentoring supports development but must be sought actively (Sambunjak et al., 2006). My network plan names the people I need at the university, in my hospital and in the profession, with actions to build those relationships now, so that when my project begins, the trust it requires is already in place.
References
Pronovost, P., Needham, D., Berenholtz, S., Sinopoli, D., Chu, H., Cosgrove, S., Sexton, B., Hyzy, R., Welsh, R., Roth, G., Bander, J., Kepros, J., & Goeschel, C. (2006). An intervention to decrease catheter-related bloodstream infections in the ICU. New England Journal of Medicine, 355(26), 2725-2732. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa061115
Reeves, S., Pelone, F., Harrison, R., Goldman, J., & Zwarenstein, M. (2017). Interprofessional collaboration to improve professional practice and healthcare outcomes. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2017(6), Article CD000072. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD000072.pub3
Sambunjak, D., Straus, S. E., & Marušić, A. (2006). Mentoring in academic medicine: A systematic review. JAMA, 296(9), 1103-1115. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.296.9.1103
How this DNP 700 Week 3 example is structured
The DNP/700 Week 3 work usually focuses on collaboration and professional networks. This paper uses evidence to set realistic expectations for collaboration and mentoring, then maps specific relationships across the university, the workplace and the profession. Students search this week as DNP 700 Week 3, DNP700 Wk 3 or DNP/700 Wk 3; all three are the same assignment.
DNP/700 Week 3 questions, answered
What does DNP/700 Week 3 usually ask for?
Many sections ask students to reflect on collaboration and to plan a professional network, including mentors, interprofessional partners and peers who will support doctoral study and the DNP project.
What is the evidence that interprofessional collaboration interventions work?
A Cochrane review of nine randomized trials found that practice-based interventions such as interprofessional rounds, meetings and checklists may slightly improve some outcomes, but the evidence was of low certainty.
Does mentoring help health professionals' careers?
A systematic review found that mentoring was reported to influence personal development, career choice and research productivity, though most studies were surveys and the evidence was not strong.
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