Enhancing the effectiveness of interdisciplinary mental health treatment teams

Mental health administrators often lack guidelines for promoting and evaluating the effectiveness of interdisciplinary clinical treatment teams. This article describes the use of a model of group effectiveness that elucidates several aspects of team effectiveness. Also discussed are how administrators can support such teams by reviewing their initial set-up, how the organization influences the team's productivity and longevity, and how team members can better understand one another's personal and professional frames of reference to improve mutual collaboration.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44090/1/10488_2005_Article_BF02106536.pd

Evaluation of the impact of interdisciplinarity in cancer care

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Teamwork is a key component of the health care renewal strategy emphasized in Quebec, elsewhere in Canada and in other countries to enhance the quality of oncology services. While this innovation would appear beneficial in theory, empirical evidences of its impact are limited. Current efforts in Quebec to encourage the development of local interdisciplinary teams in all hospitals offer a unique opportunity to assess the anticipated benefits. These teams working in hospital outpatient clinics are responsible for treatment, follow-up and patient support. The study objective is to assess the impact of interdisciplinarity on cancer patients and health professionals.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>This is a quasi-experimental study with three comparison groups distinguished by intensity of interdisciplinarity: strong, moderate and weak. The study will use a random sample of 12 local teams in Quebec, stratified by intensity of interdisciplinarity. The instrument to measure the intensity of the interdisciplinarity, developed in collaboration with experts, encompasses five dimensions referring to aspects of team structure and process. Self-administered questionnaires will be used to measure the impact of interdisciplinarity on patients (health care utilization, continuity of care and cancer services responsiveness) and on professionals (professional well-being, assessment of teamwork and perception of teamwork climate). Approximately 100 health professionals working on the selected teams and 2000 patients will be recruited. Statistical analyses will include descriptive statistics and comparative analysis of the impact observed according to the strata of interdisciplinarity. Fixed and random multivariate statistical models (multilevel analyses) will also be used.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This study will pinpoint to what extent interdisciplinarity is linked to quality of care and meets the complex and varied needs of cancer patients. It will ascertain to what extent interdisciplinary teamwork facilitated the work of professionals. Such findings are important given the growing prevalence of cancer and the importance of attracting and retaining health professionals to work with cancer patients.</p

Effective healthcare teams require effective team members: defining teamwork competencies

BACKGROUND: Although effective teamwork has been consistently identified as a requirement for enhanced clinical outcomes in the provision of healthcare, there is limited knowledge of what makes health professionals effective team members, and even less information on how to develop skills for teamwork. This study identified critical teamwork competencies for health service managers. METHODS: Members of a state branch of the professional association of Australian health service managers participated in a teamwork survey. RESULTS: The 37% response rate enabled identification of a management teamwork competency set comprising leadership, knowledge of organizational goals and strategies and organizational commitment, respect for others, commitment to working collaboratively and to achieving a quality outcome. CONCLUSION: Although not part of the research question the data suggested that the competencies for effective teamwork are perceived to be different for management and clinical teams, and there are differences in the perceptions of effective teamwork competencies between male and female health service managers. This study adds to the growing evidence that the focus on individual skill development and individual accountability and achievement that results from existing models of health professional training, and which is continually reinforced by human resource management practices within healthcare systems, is not consistent with the competencies required for effective teamwork

Treatment Teams that Work (and those that don't): An Application of Hackman's Group Effectiveness Model to Interdisciplinary Teams in Psychiatric Hospitals

Recent studies of small work groups emphasize comprehensive models of team effectiveness. A survey-based operationalization of one such model, Hackman `s Model of Group Effectiveness (Hackman, 1987, 1990), is applied to 15 interdisciplinary treatment teams working in three public psychiatric hospitals. Mental health professionals answered a self-administered questionnaire I developed (N = 98, response rate = 91%). Analysis was conducted at three levels: (a) by all respondents; (b) by team; and (c) by organizational characteristics and professional discipline, and their interaction. Through use of a structural equation model, particular initial and enabling conditions successfully predict teams' meeting standards of the required task teams' cohesion, and members' personal well-being; standards met and cohesion of team also predict overall team effectiveness. These findings emphasize the importance of measuring the various types of organizational and group factors contributing to team effectiveness, as well as the specific aspects of team effectiveness. Implications for team training are discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67357/2/10.1177_0021886395313005.pd

"In Sickness and in Health"

The effects of gender, age, marital satisfaction, and physical impairment on patterns of giving and receiving social support and social undermining (e.g., personal criticism) were examined in two samples totaling 431 older married couples. In the first sample, data were collected from husbands and their wives, half of whom were long-term breast cancer (BC) survivors and half who constituted an a symptomatic, matched control group. The second sample included data from husbands and their wives who had recently been diagnosed to have breast cancer. Wives reported giving more social support to their husbands than they felt they received from them; and they reported giving more support than their husbands reported giving to them. Similarly, husbands reported receiving more social support from their wives than their wives reported receiving from them, except for the group of recently diagnosed BC. Advanced age was correlated with husbands' reports of receiving more social support, and in the two breast cancer groups, of also giving more social support and engaging in less social undermining. It was also found that among the women in the a symptomatic control group, those who were more physically impaired reported both giving and receiving less social support, and this was corroborated by husbands' reports. In contrast, there were no associations between wives' degree of impairment and social support in the two breast cancer groups. The differential effects were hypothesized to result from the husbands' causally attributing their wives' impairment and difficulties to internal characterological factors versus to external ones beyond their control (i.e., the BC disease).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66974/2/10.1177_089826439000200205.pd