Management: Effective Teamwork in Healthcare
Effective Teamwork in Healthcare
Statement of the Problem
Cooperation and coordination among staff are essential in healthcare field, as they foster improved standards and performance. Healthcare professionals deal with the health of people, a sensitive professional as any error may have serious consequences on the patients. In this consideration, employers must work hard to foster a good working environment. Studies affirm that enhancing teamwork is a strategic approach of improving standards in the workplace (Sari et al, 2007). However, challenges in building effective teamwork presents affect service delivery in the healthcare sector. Effective teamwork would help in improving the health service delivery, which would go a long way in improving the state of healthcare. The paper presents a research analytical study that evaluates the importance of teamwork in the healthcare while describing how it would improve standards in the field.
Literature Review
Need for Effective Teamwork
Teamwork is essential in the workplace; however, building effective teamwork in healthcare is entirely challenging. Many employers in the healthcare want to have employees who can coordinate and work in teams, but they lack the framework to implement it. Effective teamwork is highly desirable in the healthcare environment because it has proved effective in enhancing standards. The literature sources recognize effective teamwork in healthcare as necessary due to many reasons. Initially, this strategy has the potential of improving standards in the field (Donaldson, 2002). Teamwork is essential as it fosters pooling together of abilities as every employee present unique potential. Most of the employees in healthcare specialize in different areas, which narrow their knowledge in the health matters. However, Donaldson (2002) highlights that with teamwork; healthcare workers can cooperate and support each other thus improving the level of services that they give.
Effective teamwork in the healthcare is also imperative because of the complexity of some health issues. The composition and functioning of teams in the healthcare varies depending on the needs of the patient. In essence, the complexity of the health issue will define the healthcare task. The more interdependency needed among the workers to serve the patient, the greater the need for effective collaboration among team members. Collaboration is essential in facilitating service delivery by ensuring that healthcare procedures are running smoothly. Some of the patients will have many complications that will call for more than five employees cooperating in order to yield the best results (Makary et al, 2006). However, that will serve to improve the quality of their services as opposed to making them weaker by working alone.
Effective teamwork in the healthcare is also important due to the diversity of the sector. Teamwork improves the quality of services delivered as each employee specializes in the area where he or she is best skilled in (Makary et al, 2006). The healthcare field does not only involve the hospital. It involves a range of services aimed at ensuring that the patients’ lives are in safety in and out of the hospital. Teams function differently depending on the areas where they operate. Teams operating in hospitals, for example, have clearly defined procedures and protocols, diverse professional hierarchies, and common institutional goals and strategies, while teams in community-based primary health care practices face challenges especially due to the role blurring in most community settings. This wide variety of settings, procedures, and tasks means that the transferability of processes is not always going to be straightforward (Makary et al, 2006). It also highlights the need to get a common definition of “team.” The teams in each area of specialization will go a long way in collaborating if the team concept is revisited in each of the areas.
Teamwork provides a ground for the organization to strengthen their culture. The structure of the hospitals is extensively bureaucratic with little interaction and bonding among the employees. Some of the employees in the healthcare have many skills that could improve service delivery, yet there lacks a good structure that could tap the talents and abilities (Christian et al, 2006). Healthcare needs a lot of teamwork because through the teams, the employees could realize their abilities and those of other people in their teams. In that way, when there are situations that need execution of the different talents and abilities, the health care system could tap into such talents. However, such a system is largely missing from the health care sector.
Training is an aspect that greatly misses from the health care sector. Most of the trainers and employers in the healthcare do not find an efficient method and system to train the employees because of the diversity in the field and lack of a base for grouping the employees. However, teamwork can alleviate the challenge in the sector. Teamwork will make the employees identify the people they can cooperate with in dealing with different issues and team together with them (Christian et al, 2006). The employers can train the health care work force in the preformed groups because there is an issue or need in common for the teams. However, such a platform is totally absent in the sector. This makes training increasingly challenging especially for the employers.
How Teamwork is infused in the Healthcare
Although full adoption of teamwork still challenges the health care sector, bold steps have come into place to infuse it into the health care sector. Teamwork in healthcare is adopted in a number of ways. The first and most common form of teamwork in the healthcare is cooperation and coordination among the doctors and nurses. Most employees cooperate in the dispensation of their duties especially through referrals and advice. However, such a form of teamwork does not provide the ground for people to learn about the skills and talents in each other (Christian et al, 2006). The teamwork at this level is purely professional and incidental. The only thing bringing employees together is the problem at hand.
The other teamwork cooperation in the healthcare mainly happens in the field. When the healthcare employees are in the field, they have no option other than to cooperate. They go to the field to fulfill a particular community service, which forces them to bring their efforts together and accomplish their task. Fieldwork provides a chance for employees to interact freely, thus understanding each other enabling them to work together as a team. The employees in the healthcare also interact in teams through the employee feedback to the employers. The employees must provide data on the treatment and operations in the healthcare to the employers. Although the employers desire a more intense teamwork in the sector, this is the furthest that the get.
Impediments to Teamwork in the HealthCare
The healthcare does not have effective teamwork due to various impediments. Firstly, the organizational culture hinders the adoption of the teamwork philosophy in the health care sector. The culture observed by an organization has the potential of affecting procedures for building teamwork. A clear organizational philosophy that focuses on the importance of teamwork can help to promote collaboration through encouraging new ways of working together among the employees (Flin, O’Connor, and Mearns, 2002). A positive organizational culture is essential in the development of common goals and efficient mechanisms for overcoming the resistance that may arise to change and turf wars concerning scopes of practice. Teams need training and personal development strategies in order to learn how to work together, cooperate, and understand the professional role of each member in the teams. They also require formation and institution of an effective administrative structure and clear leadership ranks in order to get a good coordination of the teams.
Policies adopted by the government often prompt challenges to the idea of building teamwork in healthcare environment. Some guidelines governing procedures in the healthcare environment discourage employees from working as a team. Authorities can promote teamwork in the healthcare by providing consistent government policies and approaches to foster sustainability among the employees. Through health human resource planning, the legislative frameworks, and structures to break down silos, and models of funding, the government can develop systems that encourage collaboration among the employees. According to Flin, O’Connor, and Mearns (2002), teamwork is essential in improving standards by enhancing better co-ordination. The approach also enhances better healthcare services by promoting effective utilization of healthcare resources with a focus on the factor affecting health.
Bureaucracy also influences the adoption and practice of teamwork. Most functions and activities in healthcare follow many rules and laws that do not allow employees to make their own adopt personal initiative for the directions that they make in their roles. Hospitals and dispensaries are common for the bureaucracies. A system that restricts the interactions of the employees does not provide for employees to explore the strengths and weaknesses of the other employees (Lingard et al, 2004). Some of the bureaucratic structures should be eliminated because they restrict interaction, which is the basis of teamwork in the health care sector.
The level of training also influences the level of teamwork in the healthcare. Some parties in healthcare lack training on the basic teamwork skills like cooperation and group dynamics. The management and employers in the healthcare do not train the workforce on such issue. The only focus of the players in healthcare is provision of proper health care services while little focus falls on the team skills of the employees (Flin, O'Connor and Mearns, 2002). In order to alleviate the situation, researchers argue that offering field training for the players in the healthcare is essential in fostering teamwork (Rutherford, 2003). With effective training, the employees have knowledge of the significance of cooperating with each other.
Recommendations
Teamwork is essential in workplace, which means that the healthcare systems should adopt the practice intensely. I would recommend a number of actions in order to better the teamwork practices in the sector. Firstly, the government and other healthcare regulatory structures should come up with policies in order to better teamwork activities. Such legal structures will enable employers to enact the teamwork proposals and training which will alleviate the teamwork situation in the healthcare. Furthermore, employers in healthcare should provide training to the employees so that they get basic teamwork and interaction skills. Advanced interaction and teamwork are essential because they can help the healthcare workers to identify potential of their colleagues, which they can exploit.
Bureaucratic structures in healthcare should also be reduced in order to facilitate free interactions among the employees and even with the clients. The most important party in the interactions in the healthcare is the client. The client knows a lot of information about their conditions that employees need in the execution of their duties. However, the level of interaction with the practitioners is lowered by the level of bureaucracies in the health care sector. In order to boost the teamwork in the sector, employers should lower the bureaucracies so that the parties in the healthcare can interact freely.
Conclusion
Teamwork is an important element in the healthcare sector. However, teamwork is not fully adopted in healthcare hence prompting the need of reviewing teamwork-building strategies in the sector. A number of factors that include bureaucratic aspects, lack of proper legal system, and lack of training hinder the idea of developing teamwork in the healthcare sector. Some of the healthcare institutions have fostered teamwork although not at the essential level especially in the fieldwork and among employees. However, this is not adequate because the teamwork spirit should be implemented in all aspects of healthcare. The reviewed studies guides that bureaucratic barriers should be eliminated, training provided, and a proper legal system put in place to facilitate teamwork in healthcare.
References
Christian CK, Gustafson ML, Roth EM, Sheridan TB, Gandhi TK, Dwyer K, Zinner MJ, Dierks M. M. (2006). “A prospective study of patient safety in the operating room Surgery.”139(2):159-73.
Donaldson L. (2002). “An Organization with a memory.”Clinical Med. 2(5):452-7.
Flin R, O'Connor P, Mearns K. (2002). “Crew resource management: improving team work in high reliability industries. Team Performance Management”8 (3-4): 68-78.
Lingard L, Espin S, Whyte S, Regehr G, Baker GR, Reznick R, Bohnen J, Orser B, Doran D, Grober E. (2004). “Communication failures in the operating room: an observational classification of recurrent types and effects.” QualSaf Health Care. 13(5):330-4
Makary M.A, Sexton JB, Freischlag JA, Holzmueller CG, Millman EA, Rowen L, Pronovost PJ. (2006). “Operating room teamwork among physicians and nurses: teamwork in the eye of the beholder.” J Am Coll Surg. 202(5):746-52.
Rutherford W. (2003). “Aviation safety: a model for health care?”QualSaf Health Care. 12:162-163
Sari A.B, Sheldon TA, Cracknell A, Turnbull A, Dobson Y, Grant C, Gray W, Richardson A. (2007 Dec ). “Extent, nature and consequences of adverse events: results of a retrospective case note review in a large NHS hospital.”QualSaf Health Care. 16 (6):434-9.
