Since completing this project, I learned a lot about the importance of accurate documentation of intake and output, especially for cardiac patients. I thought a lot about different barriers and situations that nurses can run into throughout their shift that could cause inaccurate documentation of intake and output. Barriers such as people bringing drinks to patients without documenting, patients using the restroom without notifying the nurse or forgetting how much fluid a patient got when sitting down to document it. As a team we thought about ways that nurses can overcome these barriers which included having a sign on the door that lets everyone know which patients are on fluid restrictions as well as writing down fluid given to patients on the whiteboard in their rooms. Because of timing, we were unable to evaluate the response to our intervention or receive feedback from our audience which was the nursing staff on R7 at Maine Medical Center. However, we hope that it provides some insight into the importance of accurate documentation of intake and output and how to overcome the barriers associated with inaccuracy. 

This project will help me as I move into my nursing career because intake and output documentation seem like such a small and insignificant task, however after completing this project I have learned how important accurate documentation truly is, especially for cardiac patients. I will take these skills and knowledge with me as I move into my nursing practice. I will keep the barriers to accurate documentation that I troubleshooted with my team in the back of my head so I am always aware and can hopefully overcome them in practice. As I move toward my career in nursing, I would want my employer to recognize my drive for quality improvement and my different ideas and creative suggestions that I can bring to the unit that I eventually work on in the future. I would also want them to notice my research skills, my use of evidence-based practice and my ability to apply evidence-based practice to the healthcare setting. 

Throughout this project I recognized the obstacles to teamwork that I hadn’t observed before while working in a team. First, because we had a large group working on the same project, it was difficult to figure out times where everyone’s schedules lined up and were able to meet and work on the project together. Thankfully we were given time in class, where our sole focus was the project and figuring out the next steps to getting it finished. Once in-person classes ended, however, there seemed to be a drop in communication between team members. We all went on preceptorship, and it was much more difficult not having that scheduled time where everyone would be present and devote time to the project. However, with everyone’s preceptorship schedules being completely different it was almost impossible to meet in person or even on zoom, so we had to rely on each other to continue to pull our own weight in order to complete the project. This was another obstacle to effective teamwork that I noticed while working on this project. Overall, our project came out better than I imagined, and I hope that it made a difference in improving the accuracy of documenting intake and output of patients on R7 at Maine Medical Center.