Teamwork: Health Care and Team Members
Organizations are increasingly becoming dynamic and unstable. Teamwork is an essential component in achieving high reliability particularly in healthcare organizations. A team consists of two or more individuals, who have specific roles, performs interdependent tasks, are adaptable and share a common goal. To work effectively together, team members must possess specific knowledge, skills and attitudes, such as the skills in monitoring each other’s performance, knowledge of their own and teammate’s task responsibilities and a positive disposition towards working in a team.
Teamwork is critical for the delivery of healthcare. Physicians, nurses, pharmacists, technicians and other health professionals must coordinate their activities to deliver safe and efficient patient care.
Characteristics of Effective Teams:
Team Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes
Characteristics of Effective Teams (Salas, Sims, and Klein 2004)
Team leadership
Have a clear common purpose
Team member roles are clear but not overly rigid
Involve the right people in decisions
Conduct effective meetings
Establish and revise team goals and plans
Team members believe the leaders care about them
Distribute and assign work thoughtfully
Backup behavior
Compensate for each other
Manage conflict well-team members confront each other effectively
Regularly provide feedback to each other, both individually and as a team (“debrief”)
“Deal” with poor performers
Are self-correcting
Mutual performance monitoring
Effectively “span” boundaries with stakeholders outside the team
Members understand each others' roles and how they fit together
Examine and adjust the team's physical workplace
Periodically diagnose team “effectiveness,” including its results
Communication
Communicate often “enough”
Adaptability
Members anticipate each other
Reallocate functions
Recognize and adjust their strategy under stress
Consciously integrate new team members.
Shared mental models
Coordinate without the need to
Teamwork is critical for the delivery of healthcare. Physicians, nurses, pharmacists, technicians and other health professionals must coordinate their activities to deliver safe and efficient patient care.
Characteristics of Effective Teams:
Team Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes
Characteristics of Effective Teams (Salas, Sims, and Klein 2004)
Team leadership
Have a clear common purpose
Team member roles are clear but not overly rigid
Involve the right people in decisions
Conduct effective meetings
Establish and revise team goals and plans
Team members believe the leaders care about them
Distribute and assign work thoughtfully
Backup behavior
Compensate for each other
Manage conflict well-team members confront each other effectively
Regularly provide feedback to each other, both individually and as a team (“debrief”)
“Deal” with poor performers
Are self-correcting
Mutual performance monitoring
Effectively “span” boundaries with stakeholders outside the team
Members understand each others' roles and how they fit together
Examine and adjust the team's physical workplace
Periodically diagnose team “effectiveness,” including its results
Communication
Communicate often “enough”
Adaptability
Members anticipate each other
Reallocate functions
Recognize and adjust their strategy under stress
Consciously integrate new team members.
Shared mental models
Coordinate without the need to