I am an LPN working at a long term acute care hospital. We have recently been told that we are going to the “team nursing” approach to patient care. I have been a nurse for over 20 years, and have done this before. I know it can work as long as all members of the team work together in a collaborative effort to get things done; but I also know that if there is a situation in which one team member does exclusively one duty, and the other does another duty…then there are many other aspects of care that get ignored or delayed or just simply not done; because no one knows who should be responsible for it. For an example, on a team of say, 12 patients; one nurse does the meds for the whole team, another does the assessments for the whole team; but then the things like wound care and dressing changes, blood sugar checks, lab draws, and of course; turning and repositioning and cleaning patients….much of these things don’t get done in a timely manner; because the two licensed team members are so busy getting thier duties done for so many patients…they don’t have time to stop in between to tend to the other things. We are proposing that withing this “team effort”, there also be a collaborative effort to talk to each other and decide things like splitting up the meds and charting, so it gets done; leaving time then to approach the other things like wound care and dressing changes, lab draws, blood sugars…and so on; as a team together. We have until the 11th of September to come up with a plan and present to our manager. I am looking for input from others as far as how team nursing has worked, and what capacity or flexibility within that team has proven affective in getting patients properaly cared for.