Teamwork in Antarctica

This document regards the report of the research project "Team Adaptation during Antarctica Summer Campaigns", supported by the Portuguese Polar Program (PROPOLAR). It contains general findings about teamwork in Antarctica and recommendations for practice

From ‘them’ to ‘us’: bridging group boundaries through team inclusiveness

To promote a sense of ‘team’ across group and hierarchical boundaries, the authors promote strategies of (a) perspective-taking, (b) inclusive leadership and language, (c) reflection and (d) increased contact between intergroup members

Promoting Learning and Patient Care Through Shared Reflection

Health care teams are groups of highly skilled experts who may often form inexpert teams because of a lack of collective competence. Because teamwork and collaboration form the foundation of effective clinical practice, factors that promote collective competence demand exploration. The authors review team reflexivity (TR), a concept from the psychology and management literatures, and how it could contribute to the collective competence of health care teams. TR captures a team’s ability to reflect collectively on group objectives, strategies, goals, processes, and outcomes of past, current, and future performance to process key information and adapt accordingly. As an overarching process that promotes team functioning, TR builds shared mental models as well as triggering team adaptation and learning. The authors present a conceptual framework for TR in health care, describing three phases in which TR may occur: pre-action TR (briefing before patient care), in-action TR (deliberations during active patient care), and post-action TR (debriefing after patient care). Depending on the phase, TR targets either goals, taskwork, teamwork, or resources and leads to different outcomes (e.g., optimal preparation, a shared mental model, adaptation, or learning). This novel conceptual framework incorporates various constructs related to reflection and unites them under the umbrella of TR. Viewing reflection through a team lens may guide future research about team functioning, optimize training efforts, and elucidate mechanisms for workplace learning, with better patient care as the ultimate goal

Twelve tips for integrating team reflexivity into your simulation-based team training

Due to increasing complexity in healthcare, clinicians must often make decisions under uncertain conditions in which teams must be flexible and process emerging information "on the fly" in order to adapt to changing circumstances. A crucial strategy that helps teams to adapt, learn, and develop is team reflexivity (TR) - a team's ability to collectively reflect on group objectives, strategies, processes, and outcomes of past and current performance and to adapt accordingly. We provide 12 evidence-based tips on incorporating TR into simulation-based team training (SBTT). The first three points elaborate on basic principles of TR, when TR can take place and why it matters. The following nine tips are then organized according to three phases in which teams are able to engage in TR: pre-action, in-action, and post-action. SBTT represents an ideal venue to train various TR behaviors that foster team learning and improve patient care