NURS 6421 Week 6 Swimlane Diagram Example

Course	NURS 6421 Supporting Workflow in Healthcare Systems
Week	Week 6
Paper type	Swimlane diagram with notes
Length	About 720 words, 5 pages
Format	APA 7 student paper
School	Walden University
Program	Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)
Updated	September 2026

Free sample paper for NURS 6421 Week 6

Five Lanes, Eleven Handoffs, Two Steps Nobody Owns: A Swimlane Diagram of an Inpatient Discharge on a Composite Medical Unit

Student Name

College of Nursing, Walden University

NURS 6421: Supporting Workflow in Healthcare Systems

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

What this page is doingThe two unowned steps are counted in the title because they are the finding the diagram was drawn to expose.

Five Lanes, Eleven Handoffs, Two Steps Nobody Owns: A Swimlane Diagram of an Inpatient Discharge on a Composite Medical Unit

Key

Lanes, top to bottom: bedside nurse, provider, pharmacy, case management, transport. Rectangles are steps, placed in the lane of whoever performs them. An arrow crossing a lane boundary is a handoff, labeled with the trigger that starts the next step. A step drawn on a boundary line, belonging to neither lane, is unowned. Shapes match the earlier referral map so the two drawings read as one body of work. Lanes are roles rather than departments, because a department lane would hide the handoffs that happen inside it, and those are where discharges most often stall. The unit and the discharge are composites.

The Diagram as a Table

Table 1

Discharge Steps by Lane, With Handoffs and Triggers

Step	Lane	Action	Handoff (trigger)
1	Provider	Writes discharge order and prescriptions	To pharmacy (order signed); to case management (order signed)
2	Pharmacy	Reconciles discharge medication list	To provider (discrepancy found)
3	Provider	Resolves discrepancy	To pharmacy (order revised)
4	Pharmacy	Sends prescriptions to patient's outpatient pharmacy	To bedside nurse (list verified)
5	Case management	Confirms home oxygen delivery and follow-up appointment	To bedside nurse (services confirmed)
6	Bedside nurse	Completes discharge teaching with patient and family
7	Bedside nurse	Removes peripheral intravenous line
8	Boundary: bedside nurse and case management	Confirms the patient's ride home has arrived	Unowned
9	Boundary: pharmacy and bedside nurse	Confirms new prescriptions are ready for pickup at the outpatient pharmacy	Unowned
10	Bedside nurse	Requests wheelchair transport	To transport (ride confirmed)
11	Transport	Takes patient to the entrance	To bedside nurse (patient departed)
12	Bedside nurse	Documents discharge time and notifies bed management	To case management (bed released)

Counted handoffs: step 1 (two), 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, plus two informal handoffs drawn as dashed arrows, the provider's verbal notice to the nurse that the order is signed and the nurse's call to case management when family asks about equipment, for eleven in all.

Notes on the Two Unowned Steps

Step 8, confirming the ride home, sits on the line between the bedside nurse and case management. Case management arranges transportation for patients who need it, but most patients are collected by family, and nobody is assigned to confirm that the family has arrived before the wheelchair is requested. In practice, the nurse asks the patient to call family, and patients sometimes wait at the entrance for an hour. Step 9, confirming that new prescriptions are ready at the patient's own pharmacy, sits between inpatient pharmacy and the bedside nurse. Inpatient pharmacy sends the prescriptions and considers its task done; the nurse assumes the pharmacy confirmed them. Patients sometimes arrive at their pharmacy to find a prior authorization needed or a drug out of stock, and the first dose is delayed by a day.

Both steps are drawn on the boundary rather than assigned to a lane, because assigning them in the drawing would describe a process that does not exist. Process mapping is used in health care improvement to make the steps of a process, and the relationships between the people who perform them, visible to those who want to change it (Antonacci et al., 2018); arranging the steps in lanes adds the handoffs and the gaps between roles, which a single-line map hides.

What this page is doingThe unowned steps are explained in their own notes, since the drawing's purpose is to show where no role is responsible.

Trigger Convention and What the Drawing Suggests

Every handoff arrow carries a trigger written as a completed state, such as order signed or list verified, rather than as an intention. This makes it possible to ask, for each handoff, how the receiving lane learns that the trigger has happened. Six of the eleven handoffs rely on someone noticing a change in the record, three rely on a phone call, and the two dashed handoffs rely on people speaking at the station. Human factors frameworks treat such communication paths as part of the work system that shapes outcomes (Holden et al., 2013). The drawing suggests two questions for the unit's discharge committee: which role should own steps 8 and 9, and whether the two informal handoffs should be made visible in the record. Observation of three more discharges, including one on a weekend, would test whether the pattern holds, since workflow studies recommend triangulating a small number of observations with interviews before redesign (Unertl et al., 2010).

References

Antonacci, G., Reed, J. E., Lennox, L., & Barlow, J. (2018). The use of process mapping in healthcare quality improvement projects. Health Services Management Research, 31(2), 74-84. https://doi.org/10.1177/0951484818770411

Holden, R. J., Carayon, P., Gurses, A. P., Hoonakker, P., Hundt, A. S., Ozok, A. A., & Rivera-Rodriguez, A. J. (2013). SEIPS 2.0: A human factors framework for studying and improving the work of healthcare professionals and patients. Ergonomics, 56(11), 1669-1686. https://doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2013.838643

Unertl, K. M., Novak, L. L., Johnson, K. B., & Lorenzi, N. M. (2010). Traversing the many paths of workflow research: Developing a conceptual framework of workflow terminology through a systematic literature review. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 17(3), 265-273. https://doi.org/10.1136/jamia.2010.004333

NURS 6421 Week 6 instructions, in plain terms

The Week 6 assignment typically asks for a swimlane or cross-functional diagram of a clinical process, showing which role or department performs each step and where handoffs occur, with a written explanation of what the diagram reveals. Many prompts suggest a process with several roles, such as discharge, admission or transfer. Diagrams usually fit on one page with one to two pages of notes. Decide whether your lanes are roles or departments; roles expose handoffs inside departments. Label each handoff with what triggers it, and resist assigning a step to a lane just to make the drawing look complete. If your prompt allows, observe more than one instance of the process before drawing.

Inside the NURS 6421 Week 6 example

The key names the five lanes, explains the shapes, notes that they match the earlier referral map and says why lanes are roles rather than departments. Table 1 presents the diagram as twelve steps with lane, action and handoff trigger, and two steps sit on boundaries marked unowned. A line under the table counts eleven handoffs, including two informal ones drawn as dashed arrows. Notes explain each unowned step and what happens to patients as a result, and cite a review of process mapping. The final section explains the trigger convention, counts how each handoff is communicated and poses two questions for the discharge committee. The trigger convention is explained once so every arrow can be read the same way.

Where the marks sit in the NURS 6421 Week 6 rubric

Swimlane rubrics generally score correct placement of steps in lanes, identification of handoffs, clarity of triggers, analysis of ownership and gaps, readability and use of evidence. Placement is judged against how the process actually runs. Handoffs are often scored individually, and a trigger on each earns credit. Analysis carries the most weight when it identifies unowned steps or fragile handoffs. Readability rewards a consistent key and notation. Evidence expects a source on process mapping or human factors, and many rubrics credit a plan for observing more cases before redesign. Some sections also ask how each handoff is communicated, which the example counts in its final section.

NURS 6421 Week 6 help from the desk

The most common mistake is drawing lanes by department, which hides the handoffs that cause trouble. Another is placing every step in a lane even when no one owns it, which removes the most useful finding. Some diagrams draw arrows without triggers, so the reader cannot tell what starts the next step. Others reuse the process map with lanes added and nothing new learned. Use role lanes, label each handoff with a completed state, leave unowned steps on the boundary and explain them, and say what question the diagram raises for the people who run the process. Also count your handoffs and check that the number in the text matches the drawing.

Get a NURS 6421 Week 6 example written to your instructions

Tell us which process your classroom named for the lane diagram, and include the prompt with the rubric. A NURS 6421 swimlane arrives drawn on a composite process of the same kind, orphaned steps marked rather than tidied away into a convenient lane. Your unit's own discharge record stays with your unit. First custom sample free, returned inside 24-48h.

More NURS 6421 papers and MSN samples

NURS 6421 Week 6 questions, answered

How is this different from the Week 3 map?

A process map answers what happens in what order. A swimlane answers who owns each part and where the work changes hands. Many sections assign both on the same process precisely so the second drawing exposes what the first hid, and the notation is held identical across both here for that reason. Sections assigning only one of the two still expect ownership to appear.

Should lanes be roles or departments?

Roles, unless the prompt says otherwise. A department lane quietly conceals internal handoffs, and internal handoffs are where discharge processes fail. The example uses five role lanes for that reason, and a note explains the choice, which is worth doing because some graders expect the departmental version. A short note defending the choice protects the submission either way, since graders differ on this.

What if a step really has no owner?

The example draws exactly that. Two steps sit on a boundary with no lane claiming them, and the notes say so plainly. Assigning an unowned step to a lane for the sake of a clean picture destroys the only finding the diagram was capable of producing. An unowned step is a finding, and findings are what this rubric buys.

Where can I find a free NURS 6421 Week 6 sample paper?

The whole swimlane diagram, laid out as a table, with the key, notes on the unowned steps and the closing section, is free to read here. A diagram of the process your prompt names can be drafted on request.

How many lanes should a NURS 6421 swimlane diagram have?

Enough to show every role that performs a step, usually four to six for a discharge or admission. Too few lanes hide handoffs; too many make the drawing hard to read.

NURS 6421 Week 6 swimlane diagram example