Primary vs. Team Nursing Care Models: A Comparative Review
This paper examines two contrasting nursing care models—primary nursing and team nursing—through a review of four scholarly articles and direct practice observation. The author summarizes research on primary nursing's emphasis on individualized patient relationships, autonomy, and cross-professional communication, as well as team nursing's multidisciplinary collaboration and shared accountability. Drawing on experience as a labor and delivery nurse, the paper describes how the primary nursing model is currently implemented, identifies its limitations, and recommends the team nursing model as an alternative that could improve patient safety, care timeliness, and staff satisfaction. The paper concludes with reflections on the value of flexibility across nursing care frameworks.
- Primary Nursing Care Model: Scholarly Review: Two articles on primary nursing and its core features
- Team Nursing Care Model: Scholarly Review: Two articles on team nursing's structure and outcomes
- Observing Primary Nursing in Practice: Primary nursing as observed in labor and delivery
- Recommending the Team Nursing Model: Team nursing proposed to improve safety and satisfaction
- Conclusion: Lessons Learned About Nursing Care Models: Reflection on flexibility and appropriateness of care models
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounds abstract model comparisons in concrete clinical experience, making the analysis practical and credible.
- Uses a consistent parallel structure—summary, observation, recommendation—that keeps the argument easy to follow.
- Supports each claim with specific citations from peer-reviewed nursing journals, lending academic weight to the reflective content.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied literature review with personal synthesis: each scholarly source is summarized not in isolation but in direct relationship to a lived clinical context. Rather than simply reporting what articles say, the author connects findings to real practice observations, then uses those connections to justify a policy recommendation. This technique is characteristic of reflective nursing scholarship at the undergraduate level.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows a five-part structure: (1) a dual-article review of primary nursing, (2) a dual-article review of team nursing, (3) a specific practice-setting observation of primary nursing implementation, (4) a targeted recommendation for adopting team nursing, and (5) a brief reflective conclusion. Each section is clearly delineated and builds logically toward the final recommendation, giving the paper a coherent argumentative arc despite its reflective format.
Primary Nursing Care Model: Scholarly Review
The first article reviewed for this assignment pertaining to the primary nursing care model is entitled "Implementation of a Primary Nursing Model to Optimize Patient Care and Safety in an Outpatient Chemotherapy Unit." The authors discuss the incorporation of a primary nursing care model for use with cancer patients receiving chemotherapy treatment, addressing some of the fundamental aspects of this particular care model. One of the most prominent of these is the communication involved between registered nurses and other healthcare professionals in deploying such a model. The article describes registered nurses working in conjunction with other personnel to monitor the treatment of patients undergoing radiation. Nurses worked with these professionals on an individual patient basis, gradually fostering "disease specific expertise" (Olstrom & Albanese, 2006, p. 447) as a result.
The second article reviewed for the primary nursing care model is entitled "A Patient Resource Program: Strengthening Primary Nursing." It details the efforts of a patient resource program to find ways to counteract three identified detriments to primary nursing: "fragmentation of care, duplication, and blurred accountability" (Hambleton, 1998, p. 33). The article illustrates both the autonomy and the degree of partnership involved in this model, as nurses must make vital assessments about patient responses to treatment and apply that information in conjunction with other healthcare professionals.
Team Nursing Care Model: Scholarly Review
"A Multidisciplinary Approach to Team Nursing within a Low Secure Service: The Team Leader Role" by Nagi et al. chronicles the reshaping of the team nursing care model for a United Kingdom mental health facility. The article reviews other care models and the typical characteristics of the team care model before describing the transformation of that model for the specific environment. The principal difference in the authors' approach is that there is not a single team leader but rather various "multidisciplinary team leaders" (Nagi et al., 2012, p. 56).
"Team Nursing: Experiences of Nurse Managers in Acute Care Settings" by Ferguson and Cioffi uses a qualitative descriptive study to gain insight into the team nursing care model. Team leaders from acute care surgical settings shared data about their experiences incorporating this care model into their work. The article revealed both advantages and disadvantages with this approach. Most prominent among the advantages was that less experienced staff could work alongside more experienced staff (Ferguson & Cioffi, 2011, p. 6), creating collective benefits for the entire team. However, those in team leader positions carried a significant amount of responsibility upon which the success of such endeavors largely depended.
Observing Primary Nursing in Practice
The primary nursing care model is implemented through the direct interaction of nurses with patients in the observed practice setting. The foundation of those interactions is the relationship that nurses foster with each patient. In that respect, there is a degree of autonomy involved—which is central to the primary nursing model. Specifically, the observed setting is a labor and delivery unit, where registered nurses are expected to develop relationships with no more than two patients at a time as the foundation for the care administered to them. As registered nurses, the ability to fulfill this component of the care model is essential.
Nevertheless, the autonomy that is intrinsic to this model operates within an equally fundamental framework of collaboration with additional healthcare professionals. Registered nurses work in conjunction with physicians and residents to ensure that patients receive holistic treatment. The registered nurses provide the initial impetus for treatment, which is in turn informed by input from physicians and residents. Communication between the primary care nurse and the broader healthcare team is vital to the success of this implementation. Registered nurses review the electronic fetal monitoring strip and then apply nursing knowledge and judgment to determine appropriate interventions when necessary.
Conclusion: Lessons Learned About Nursing Care Models
The main lesson learned from this experience was that nursing care models offer different ways to achieve the same objective. Essentially, all nursing models are simply ways to offer care that is conducive to patients and responsive to the particular physiological conditions they face. No care model is inherently superior to all others. Rather, some are more appropriate than others depending on the settings in which they are implemented. It is therefore ideal for medical facilities to maintain a degree of flexibility in the type of care they provide. Engaging with this topic has reinforced the importance of understanding how nursing care frameworks can and should adapt to meet the needs of specific patient populations and clinical environments.
References
Ferguson, L., & Cioffi, J. (2011). Team nursing: Experiences of nurse managers in acute care settings. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 28(4), 6–11.
Hambleton, J. M. (1998). A patient resource program: Strengthening primary nursing. Nursing Management, 29(3), 33–34.
Nagi, C., Davies, J., Williams, M., Roberts, C., & Lewis, R. (2012). A multidisciplinary approach to team nursing within a low secure service: The team leader role. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 48, 56–61.
Olstrom, J., & Albanese, P. (2006). Implementation of a primary nursing model to optimize patient care and safety in an outpatient chemotherapy unit. Oncology Nursing Forum, 33(2), 447.
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