Collaborative Caring: Stories and Reflections on Teamwork in Health Care

[Excerpt] There are many theoretical and conceptual books and countless articles that have explored issues of teamwork in general and teamwork in health care in particular. The editors, and many of the authors in this book, have read most, and have even written some of them. To tackle the issue of teamwork, we have, however, taken a different approach. Rather than write a theoretical book about what teamwork is, what it is not, where it exists in health care, what barriers prevent its implementation and how they can be removed, we have chosen instead to address these questions through narratives and reflections that vividly describe good teamwork as well as problems in creating, leading, and working on genuine teams. What we believe is too often lacking in the literature is a clear and compelling picture of what teamwork looks like on the ground, in the institutions where health care work is delivered and where teams play well, or don\u27t play well, on a daily basis. The question we ask here is thus: What is the state of play in most health care institutions? To describe the state of play, we have asked clinicians to write what we think of as where the rubber hits the road stories or reflections about the nature of teamwork in their own particular work setting. To gather these stories, we talked to many people in different health care disciplines. In the invitation for submissions we wrote the following: We are seeking short, concise narratives that describe a concrete example in which you personally have been involved. The idea here is not to focus so much on the individual doctor-patient, nurse-patient, therapist-patient communication but the teamwork that was involved in ensuring that the standard of care was met or exceeded. If the patient or family was involved, so much the better. Stories can deal with interprofessional or intraprofessional teamwork. On balance, we would prefer to have more stories about interprofessional or occupational teamwork. Nonetheless, we recognize that interprofessional work depends on the ability to create teamwork within an occupation or profession. Stories involving support staff, such as housekeepers who spoke up about a patient safety issue, are definitely within the purview of this book. We would also welcome personal reflections that would enhance our understanding of either how to produce genuine teamwork or the obstacles that stand in its way

Factors affecting multifunctional teams in innovation processes

Structuring the innovation process and managing multifunctional teams is a basic prerequisite successful innovation. A well-structured process gives the possibility to implement effective multifunctional teamwork. Meanwhile, multifunctional teamwork helps to optimise and accomplish the innovation process. Organizational support is necessary to achieve effective teamwork. Designing or changing the organizational structures for multifunctional collaboration is an important issue. Changing the system of performance measurement and setting up a multifunctional organizational culture gives employees strong signals that multifunctional integration is encouraged. --product development,innovation process,multifunctional team

Eagle-eye Custodians Lift Facilities Services to the Next Level

Values at Work Series: Facilities Services developed our core values of Service, Integrity, Teamwork, Excellence, and Stewardship (collectively referred to as SITES) based on the way we approach our work. Our values can be found throughout our areas of services in many ways.Through a series of articles, the Values at Work Series is devoted to providing a closer look at how our values are hard at work. Each article focuses on an area of service and how that group incorporates our values in a significant way. We are proud of our employees who continue to serve as an example of “walking the talk” every day.What makes the custodians of The University of Texas at Austin extraordinary? Is it the specialized, in-depth training they’ve received? Is it their award-winning cleaning methods used to carry out their duties? Or is it the teamwork they put in action each day to efficiently and effectively provide quality custodial services in support of the university’s mission? All of these aspects make for an outstanding team of professionals. What further sets them apart is their stewardship of the buildings. They not only carry out their assigned tasks well, but they also know they are that extra set of eyes in identifying a facilities issue - many times before the building occupants even notice the issue and have to report it. It is this sense of “ownership” that helps to makes them extraordinary stewards.Facilities Service

Good practices to managing projects better

The XXI. century increased the value of projects in the life of companies. Our economic system has not become simpler, and the tasks that companies need to manage on a daily basis have been further complicated. Having a really good project manager has become a key issue for a project success, because without proper project management practice, teamwork cannot be effectively coordinated. What kind of person should be an effective project manager? What does a good project manager need to know nowadays? This study addresses these issues and attempts to summarize the characteristics of a good project manager.peer-reviewe

What fosters or prevents interprofessional teamworking in primary and community care? A literature review

Background: The increase in prevalence of long-term conditions in Western societies, with the subsequent need for non-acute quality patient healthcare, has brought the issue of collaboration between health professionals to the fore. Within primary care, it has been suggested that multidisciplinary teamworking is essential to develop an integrated approach to promoting and maintaining the health of the population whilst improving service effectiveness. Although it is becoming widely accepted that no single discipline can provide complete care for patients with a long-term condition, in practice, interprofessional working is not always achieved. Objectives: This review aimed to explore the factors that inhibit or facilitate interprofessional teamworking in primary and community care settings, in order to inform development of multidisciplinary working at the turn of the century. Design: A comprehensive search of the literature was undertaken using a variety of approaches to identify appropriate literature for inclusion in the study. The selected articles used both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Findings: Following a thematic analysis of the literature, two main themes emerged that had an impact on interprofessional teamworking: team structure and team processes. Within these two themes, six categories were identified: team premises; team size and composition; organisational support; team meetings; clear goals and objectives; and audit. The complex nature of interprofessional teamworking in primary care meant that despite teamwork being an efficient and productive way of achieving goals and results, several barriers exist that hinder its potential from becoming fully exploited; implications and recommendations for practice are discussed. Conclusions: These findings can inform development of current best practice, although further research needs to be conducted into multidisciplinary teamworking at both the team and organisation level, to ensure that enhancement and maintenance of teamwork leads to an improved quality of healthcare provision. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Examining Health Mentors’ Perceptions of Student Teamwork

Statement of Issue: With the increasing emphasis on interprofessional teamwork in healthcare, the need to train future health care professionals to work together as a functional team to provide patient-centered care is clear. Limited information exists regarding education of health care students and teamwork training.1,2 This research evaluates student team performance. Background: Thomas Jefferson University (TJU) offers a unique, two-year program emphasizing delivery of patient-centered care and providing valuable skill development by pairing interprofessional student teams with a Health Mentor (HM). The HM is an adult community volunteer with one or more chronic health condition(s). Student teams include representatives from couple and family therapy, medicine, nursing, occupational therapy, pharmacy, physical therapy, and physician assistant. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how the HMs perceive their student teams over time by using the Jefferson Teamwork Observation Guide (JTOG), a survey tool based upon the Interprofessional Education (IPE) Core Competencies.

Bedside Manners: Play and Workbook

[Excerpt] Our goal in the play was to create a balanced work. In Bedside Manners, the reader will find people who communicate poorly and those who communicate well. Although the play focuses primarily on physicians and nurses and the acute-care hospital setting, we have tried to expand the cast of characters to include others on the health care team and to include other settings. As the safety literature documents, poor communication between members of the health care team is not simply an individual problem—a question of a few bad apples spoiling the barrel—but is rather a system problem that stems from how health care has historically developed. Although it is beyond the scope of this commentary to describe that historical development, suffice it to say that the problems of contemporary health care team relationships have a long history and are shaped not only by economics but also by gender, culture, religion, ethnicity, and many other factors. Although our play is meant to stimulate discussion about health care teamwork and suggest ways that doctors, nurses, and others in health care can develop the skills necessary to create and sustain genuine interprofessional teams, it is primarily a work of theater. Its goal is to help those who work in health care approach a very hot topic in a way that is both interesting and even, dare I say it, fun. To accompany the play and make it more user-friendly, Scott Reeves, Lisa Hayes, and I have also written a workbook, which explains the various ways it can be performed, how to mount a performance, and how to lead a discussion or workshop after the play is over. We also explain how to use the play as part of an interprofessional curriculum. Although some in our audiences have scoffed at such a touchy feely or unconventional way to present a serious issue, our experience has convinced us that theater is a useful tool to enhance teamwork, patient safety, and also to create more satisfying workplace relationships. Theater has been with humankind since almost the beginning of our history precisely because it is such a powerful tool. It can be used by those in health care who spend their days working with sick, frightened, anxious people, people who are, by definition, not at their best. Under the best of circumstances, their work is beyond difficult. Good communication and teamwork not only produces good patient outcomes; it helps health care professionals care for one another

Implementation of TeamSTEPPS

This scholarly project focused on implementing Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS) in an emergency room (ER). The aim of TeamSTEPPS is to improve patient outcomes by educating healthcare professionals on communication and teamwork skills. TeamSTEPPS teaches healthcare professionals leadership skills, shared mental models, mutual trust, and closed loop communication. The purpose of the scholarly project was to improve teamwork and communication. The study method was descriptive analysis of 51 pre and posttest questionnaires, specifically looking for increased knowledge of TeamSTEPPS tools. The participants included: ER physicians, ER nurses, ER certified nursing assistants/health unit coordinators, a pharmacy technician, public safety officers, and patient revenue management organization (PRMO). Further research is needed to evaluate how to significantly increase staff knowledge on TeamSTEPPS tools in a class setting

The Impact of Group Diversity on Performance and Knowledge Spillover -- An Experiment in a College Classroom

An important yet under-explored question in the teamwork literature concerns how group characteristics affect productivity. Within a given teamwork setting, it is not obvious how group member diversity affects the performance of the individual and the group. The group may gain from knowledge transfer and sharing while it may be crippled by communication and coordination problems that are prevalent in heterogeneous groups. In this study, we combine class performance data from an undergraduate management class with students%u2019 personal records to explore diversity and knowledge spillover effects. A major advantage of our dataset is the exogenous assignment of groups, which rules out the troublesome yet common self-selection issue in team literature. Our results indicate that male-dominant groups performed worse both in group work and in individually taken exams than female-dominant and equally-mixed gender groups after controlling for other group characteristics. Individual members from a group with more diversity in age and gender scored higher in exams. However, we did not find any significance of a group%u2019s racial composition over group and individual performances. Another novel aspect of this natural experiment is that each group chooses their own group contract form %u2013 members of %u201Cautonomous%u201D groups receive equal grade for their group work while those in "democratic" groups can adopt differentiated point allocation, thus, providing a proper mechanism to punish free riders. Our estimation results show a significant correlation between the choice of a democratic contract and the group and individual performance. To address the endogeneity problem in groups%u2019 contract choices, we use a maximum likelihood treatment effect model and found that the democratic group contract has a positive and significant effect on group performance.