SYNERGY IN CRITICAL CARE: THE COLLABORATION BETWEEN INTENSIVE CARE NURSING SPECIALISTS AND NEUROPHYSIOLOGY TECHNOLOGISTS

Abstract

The optimal care of critically ill patients who become unconscious and incapable of decisive clinical communication requires cooperation between intensive care nursing specialists and neurophysiology technologists. Neurophysiology technologists performing continuous EEG monitoring utilize a similar set of skills to scan the patients’ situation and identify signs of deterioration or other changes. They must communicate effectively with the patient, the intensive care nurses, and other hospital department resources. Combining skills contributes substantial synergy to critical care treatment.

Dutch intensive care nursing specialists and neurophysiology technologists working in a Dutch hospital complement each other with additional skills that may be employed when surveillance of patients in the intensive care unit is very intense. Although the positions of the respective teams are different, the specialists and technologists have many of the same responsibilities during a patient’s monitoring period in intensive care. The expanded skills of the nursing specialists and associated patient care responsibilities are presented. A comparison with the experience of the neurophysiology technologists is then described in detail, concluding with an overview of the four skills groups that represent synergy in the hospital's internal intensive care communication and serve as an example for other specialized hospital caretaking functions.