CNL Interprofessional Collaboration & Communication 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In a shared governance model, the CNL's primary responsibility includes:
- Making unilateral care decisions for the unit
- Reporting directly to hospital administration only
- Delegating all governance functions to staff nurses
- Participating in and facilitating evidence-based decision-making at the point of care (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Participating in and facilitating evidence-based decision-making at the point of care
CNLs participate in and facilitate shared governance by empowering staff nurses to make evidence-based decisions at the bedside within a collaborative structure.
Question 2: In TeamSTEPPS, 'mutual support' is best defined as:
- Each team member working independently within their scope
- Team members assisting each other and advocating for patient safety (Correct answer)
- Support provided exclusively by team leaders to staff
- Assistance limited to sharing clinical equipment
Correct answer: Team members assisting each other and advocating for patient safety
Mutual support in TeamSTEPPS means team members assist each other with tasks, provide feedback, and advocate for patients when safety concerns arise.
Question 3: The CUS technique in assertive communication stands for:
- Communicate, Update, Summarize
- Critical, Urgent, Serious
- Confirm, Understand, Solve
- Concerned, Uncomfortable, Safety issue (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Concerned, Uncomfortable, Safety issue
CUS stands for 'I am Concerned, I am Uncomfortable, This is a Safety issue' — an escalating assertive language technique used in high-stakes clinical situations.
Question 4: Nurses on a unit are reluctant to speak up when concerned about a patient's deteriorating condition. This most likely represents a failure in:
- Medication reconciliation processes
- Supply chain management protocols
- Documentation standards compliance
- Psychological safety within the team (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Psychological safety within the team
Psychological safety — the shared belief that speaking up will not lead to punishment or ridicule — is essential for team members to voice patient safety concerns openly.
Question 5: Interprofessional education (IPE) is primarily designed to:
- Replace profession-specific training curricula
- Focus clinical training exclusively on medical students
- Have students from different health professions learn together to improve collaborative practice (Correct answer)
- Eliminate professional role boundaries in healthcare delivery
Correct answer: Have students from different health professions learn together to improve collaborative practice
IPE involves students from two or more health professions learning together with the explicit goal of improving collaborative practice and ultimately health outcomes.
Question 6: In TeamSTEPPS, 'situation monitoring' is best described as:
- Attending scheduled monthly staff meetings
- Following a fixed care plan regardless of patient changes
- Completing daily charting and documentation requirements
- Continuously scanning the environment to assess team performance and patient status (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Continuously scanning the environment to assess team performance and patient status
Situation monitoring involves actively and continuously assessing the environment, patient status, and team performance to detect changes that may require intervention.
Question 7: During interprofessional care coordination rounds, the CNL's primary focus should be:
- Evaluating individual physician clinical competence
- Reviewing unit-level financial performance data
- Integrating information from all disciplines to develop a cohesive, patient-centered plan of care (Correct answer)
- Assigning specific tasks solely to nursing staff
Correct answer: Integrating information from all disciplines to develop a cohesive, patient-centered plan of care
During multidisciplinary rounds, the CNL integrates perspectives from all disciplines — nursing, medicine, pharmacy, social work, and others — to create a unified, patient-centered plan of care.
CNL Interprofessional Collaboration & Communication 2
In a shared governance model, the CNL's primary responsibility includes: