| Course | NR 527 Communication and Collaboration for Advanced Nursing Practice |
|---|---|
| Week | 7 |
| Paper type | Team charter |
| Length | About 1,100 words, 2 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | MSN |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 527 Week 7
Team Charter: The Nursing Facility and Emergency Department Transitions Group, Written as a Working Protocol for Channels, Answer Times and Coverage Rather Than a Statement of Values
Student Name
College of Nursing, Chamberlain University
NR 527: Communication and Collaboration for Advanced Nursing Practice
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Team Charter: The Nursing Facility and Emergency Department Transitions Group, Written as a Working Protocol for Channels, Answer Times and Coverage Rather Than a Statement of Values
Purpose
The transitions group exists to make sure that every resident moving between the region's five nursing facilities and the emergency department arrives with the information the receiving clinician needs to act, in both directions. It was formed after a one-month trial of a night return sheet and a three-month extension to all five facilities. This charter sets out how the group works. It deliberately says little about shared values, which the members already hold, and a great deal about which channel carries which message, how quickly each must be answered and who acts when the named person is away.
Members and Roles
Chair: the nurse practitioner from the first facility, for one year, then rotating. Convenes meetings, sends the monthly report, holds the agenda.
Emergency department: the medical director (sponsor, approves changes to what the department sends), the evening charge nurse (day-to-day contact for returns) and one staff nurse representative.
Nursing facilities: the director of nursing or a named designee from each of the five facilities.
Emergency medical services: the county supervisor, who coordinates changes to what paramedics carry and hand over.
Hospital case management: one case manager, for residents who are admitted rather than returned.
Channels, Answer Times and Coverage
Table 1 sets out which channel carries which kind of message, how quickly it must be answered and who answers when the named person is away.
Table 1
Channels, Answer Times and Coverage
| Message | Channel | Answer expected | If the named person is away |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urgent clinical question about a resident being transferred or returned | Phone to the named contact (facility charge nurse or ED charge nurse) | Within 30 minutes, day or night | Facility house supervisor; ED physician in charge |
| Transfer handover to the emergency department | Paper handover in the transfer packet, plus phone report from facility nurse to ED triage nurse | Read on arrival | Not applicable |
| Return summary to the facility | Four-line return sheet on top of the packet; phone report for night returns if new medication | Present on every night return | Any ED nurse discharging the resident |
| Process problem, such as a missing sheet | Email to the group list, naming the date and facility, without resident identifiers | Two business days | Chair's named backup |
| Monthly data report | Email from the chair to all members | Sent by the 10th of each month | Chair's named backup sends it |
| Proposed change to a form or process | Agenda item at the monthly meeting | Decided at the meeting or deferred once | Sponsor decides if deferred twice |
How Decisions Are Made
Changes to forms or processes are agreed by consensus of members present at the monthly meeting. If the group cannot agree after two meetings, the emergency department medical director decides for changes to what the department sends, and the facility directors of nursing decide jointly for changes to what the facilities send. This keeps each organization in control of its own documents while preventing indefinite delay.
If the answer time in a row proves unrealistic, the row will be changed to what members can actually meet, since an answer time routinely missed teaches everyone to ignore the charter.
Meetings
Monthly, 45 minutes, by video, on the second Tuesday at 1330, which suits both the evening charge nurse's schedule and the facilities' afternoon lull. Standing agenda: the monthly data, problems raised by email, one proposed improvement. Minutes are sent within three business days.
What the Group Will Not Do
The group will not discuss individual residents' clinical care, which belongs to their clinicians, and it will not handle complaints about individual staff, which go through each organization's own processes. Emails to the group list will never contain resident names or other identifiers; examples are described by date and facility only. The group also will not create new forms without first retiring an old one, since each added form is another document a busy nurse must find. Keeping these limits written down protects the group from drifting into a forum for grievances, which would make members less willing to raise problems honestly.
When Members Change
Charge nurses and directors of nursing change jobs often. Each organization will name its member and a backup, and when a member leaves, the backup attends until a replacement is named. New members receive this charter, the last three monthly reports and a fifteen-minute call with the chair before their first meeting. This matters because the group's value depends on shared understanding across professions and organizations, which the national interprofessional competencies describe as knowing one's own role and the roles of others (Interprofessional Education Collaborative, 2023). A new charge nurse who does not know why the return sheet exists will stop using it within a month.
Why the Charter Is Written This Way
Research on teams suggests that what a team settles at its start shapes how it performs over time; in a study of student teams, the highest sustained performance came from teams whose charters and whose performance strategies were both of high quality (Mathieu & Rapp, 2009). A high-quality charter in this sense is not an inspiring one but a specific one: it settles in advance the questions that otherwise cause friction, such as who answers the phone and what happens when they are on leave.
The table of channels answers the problem that started this work. Residents were moving between settings with requests that no one was assigned to answer, and with answers that went into records the next clinician could not see. Structured communication tools help only when both sides know where to find the message and who owns the reply (Haig et al., 2006). The coverage column exists because the most common failure of any named contact is absence: vacation, illness or a shift change.
Review
The group will review this charter at its sixth meeting and revise any row that has not worked in practice. A charter that describes how the group should work but not how it actually works will be rewritten, not defended.
The charter is short on purpose. Every row answers one practical question someone will ask at an inconvenient hour, and anything that does not answer such a question was left out, however worthy it sounded when first proposed.
References
Haig, K. M., Sutton, S., & Whittington, J. (2006). SBAR: A shared mental model for improving communication between clinicians. Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 32(3), 167-175. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1553-7250(06)32022-3
Interprofessional Education Collaborative. (2023). IPEC core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice: Version 3. https://www.ipecollaborative.org/ipec-core-competencies
Mathieu, J. E., & Rapp, T. L. (2009). Laying the foundation for successful team performance trajectories: The roles of team charters and performance strategies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(1), 90-103. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013257
The Chamberlain NR 527 Week 7 instructions
The Week 7 assignment asks you to create a charter for an interprofessional team. Prompts usually ask for the team's purpose, members and roles, communication norms, decision-making processes, conflict resolution and evaluation. The strongest charters read as working protocols rather than statements of values: which channel carries which kind of message, how quickly each must be answered and who acts when someone is away. Include decision rules for when consensus fails. State what the team will not do. Plan for membership changes. Cite research on teams or interprofessional practice in APA 7. Some sections provide a charter template, and some ask for signatures or a review cycle.
How the NR 527 Week 7 example is put together
The example opens with a one-paragraph purpose and a statement that the charter will favor protocol over values. Members and roles are listed with their responsibilities. A table sets out six message types, from urgent clinical questions to proposed form changes, each with channel, expected answer time and backup. Decision rules explain who decides when the group cannot agree. Meeting logistics are specific. A section limits the group's scope and bans identifiers in email. Another covers member turnover and orientation. The rationale draws on research on team charters and structured communication, and a review date commits to rewriting rows that fail. Every row can be checked against what actually happens.
NR 527 Week 7 rubric: what full points look like
The rubric for the team charter usually rewards a clear purpose, defined roles, specific communication and decision processes, attention to conflict and evaluation, and grounding in team or interprofessional literature. Graders favor charters with concrete answer times and backup coverage, since those prevent the most common failures. Decision rules for deadlock show foresight. Scope limits and privacy rules often earn credit under professionalism. A review plan shows the charter is meant to change with experience. The channel table must match the prose around it, and a charter that could be handed to a new member as their orientation usually scores well. Sources on team performance belong in APA 7.
Common NR 527 Week 7 mistakes, and how to avoid them
The biggest mistake is a charter full of values, such as respect and open communication, with no protocol. Say who answers what, how, and how fast. Another is naming a single contact for each role without a backup, which fails the first time someone is on leave. Students also forget decision rules for disagreement. Keep answer times realistic, since times that are routinely missed teach members to ignore the charter. State what the group will not handle. Plan for turnover. Finally, set a review date and commit to changing what does not work, so the charter stays a working document rather than a record of good intentions. Test each row against a real week.
Get a NR 527 Week 7 example written to your instructions
Send the team scenario your week describes, with the rubric, and a custom charter is written to it and returned inside 24-48h, the first one free. Tell us whether the team is a group project inside your section or a workplace team from the case, because the two need different rules about absence.
More NR 527 papers and MSN samples
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- NR 527 Week 8: Collaboration Case Report
- NR 520 Week 7: Ethical Decision Brief, Refused Draw
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- NR 516 Week 7: Evidence Table for a Flushing Question
NR 527 Week 7 questions, answered
Does the charter need signatures?
Include a signature block even when nobody will sign it, because it changes how the rest reads. A document that expects agreement gets written more carefully than a description of intentions. If your section runs a real group project, actually collecting the agreement is worth doing, since rules the team never saw are the ones broken first.
How specific should the answer times be?
Specific enough to be missed. Two working days, or same day for anything blocking somebody else, both work. Vague commitments to respond promptly are the commonest phrasing in submitted charters and the commonest place marks disappear. Include what happens after the interval passes, since a stated time with no consequence attached tends not to survive the second week.
Is the charter for a real team or an invented one?
Follow the assignment, and if it leaves the choice open, a team you can describe concretely will always produce the better document. Real constraints, such as one member on nights and another in a different time zone, force rules that a generic charter never has to face. Keep names out and describe roles instead.
Where can I find a free NR 527 Week 7 sample paper?
The transitions-group charter above is the complete NR 527 Week 7 sample, freely available. If your team spans different professions or settings, send its membership through the request form for a charter written as a protocol.
How specific should answer times be in the NR 527 charter?
Specific enough to check, such as 30 minutes for urgent calls and two business days for email. The sample sets a time for each message type and names who answers if the usual person is away.