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