Teamwork And Collaboration

Teamwork and collaboration in nursing can be defined as the development of partnerships to achieve best possible outcomes that reflect the particular needs of the patient, family, or community, requiring an understanding of what others have to offer. (Giddens & Liesveld, 2013). This means that nurses are constantly working as a team to provide the best care for their patients. Working as part of a team may include listening to the client, getting help from another nurse to verify dosage calculations or working alongside the doctor to carefully facilitate their orders. I don’t believe any one nurse would be effective if they were working by themselves. The profession alone is demanding and one nurse working by themselves to assist the needs of more than one patient at a time would be dangerous.

Successful teamwork and collaboration directly affects the efficacy of interdisciplinary communication. When effective communication is achieved within the healthcare team, this increases the amount of positive patient outcomes. Nurses and physicians must cooperate in order to attain a synergetic relationship. Their roles are integral to creating a safe environment for their patients. When all of these elements combine, the quality of care improves and collegial relationships are strengthened.

Courtenay, Nancarrow, and Dawson (2013) reviewed numerous articles that studied the effect of teamwork education (communication, cooperation, etc.) on the time and outcome of care. Courtenay et al. (2013) found that effective teamwork decreased the time necessary for critical treatments or surgery and also reduced the number of errors made. Courtenay et al. (2013) write that teams performed well when the responsibilities and role of each team member was known. Courtenay et al. (2013) also state that good teams shared an overall sense of mutual responsibility of the outcome of the patient.

When doing this, they become part of the interdisciplinary team, which consists of the nurses and all the other professionals providing care to the patient. It is an “approach in which two or more disciplines collaborate in the learning process with the goal of fostering interprofessional interactions that enhance the practice of each discipline.” (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2014, p. 1) Each healthcare member involved evaluates and develops a specific plan of care related to their field. When they communicate that plan, discuss thoughts and ideas, and continually reassess their plans with each other, a successful interdisciplinary team has been developed. Both teams are important to the patient and play huge roles in nursing.

"Results of this study point to the need to enhance nursing teamwork on patient care units. If nursing staff are not satisfied, like workers in general, they will be more likely to leave their position/occupation and/or to have a lower level of productivity. Moreover, increased teamwork would lead to safer and higher quality of care."

In order to fully explore the nature of team work in healthcare it is importance to first look at what defines a team.A team can be defined as two or more people with specific roles working together to achieve a common purpose(Kalisch & Begeny, 2005). For

Teamwork and collaboration can be found in many various settings including healthcare. In nursing one can find a plethora of teams, such as multidisciplinary teams. Observers and participants have found particular dynamics within teams that influence the success of those teams which in turn affect patient safety. Through a collaborative effort, nursing experts developed competencies to ensure teamwork and collaborative practices of current and future practitioners with the goal of improved quality of care and patient safety.

When all healthcare team members, patients, and families work together, the quality and safety of the care provided increases. Collaboration amongst healthcare professionals and patients can result in decreased anxiety from the patient and increased trust in their healthcare team. For example, a healthcare team that works together and communicates appropriately with each other as well as the patient allows everyone to be on the same page and continue to deliver efficient and quality care. Healthcare providers with an attitude of compassion and understanding along with patient being involvement in their own care should lead to a great experience. Healthcare professionals, in turn, may gather a better concept of the patient’s needs and concerns while establishing rapport.

Team discussions include; barriers of care, individualized client education techniques, emotional support needed, facilitation of community referrals and resources, and needs of other health care professionals. According to Fewster-Thuente, “Effective nurse-physician collaboration is essential to superior patient care. The lack of effective collaboration has been cited as the root cause of over 70% of major medical errors (The Joint Commission, 2014). Stability of care provides the patient with safe, timely treatment and prevention of complications.

1. What is the one topic that really stood out to you in Chapter 9- Collaborating in Teams? Why? Chapter nine in our textbook addressed collaborating in teams. This chapter did an excellent job of informing the reader about several key elements pertaining to teamwork. Topics like elements of teamwork, team dynamics and how to improve them, and ways to enhance teamwork. After completing the homework for this week in conjunction with our required reading assignments one aspect of our reading really stood out to me. Learning about the differences between groups and teams in the workplace was very interesting to me. As learned, there are several fundamental differences between groups and teams. Some of the components of a group are: roles

In order to collaborate successfully with the other members of the team, they have to ‘work together’. Collaboration implies “working together to achieve something that neither agency could achieve alone” (cited by Biggs in Day, 2006, p9). It involves effective communication and contribution to a common goal – and the health and wellbeing of the patient and shared responsibility of the outcome. Each team requires a quality leader, regular meetings attended by all members, joint assessment, regular reviews of patient records which should include ‘shared care plans’; joint decisions following consultation and task delegation to individual team members with the outcome being that “care must be structured, organised and systematically provided to each person in a variety of ways” (Creating an Interprofessional Workforce, 2007, p10).

There are different articles that review the “team nursing care model” approach .For the purpose of this paper I would like to begin with the article “championing a team: reviewing the role of team composition, context and trust on nursing team performance,” as stated in Australian Journal of Sustainable Business and Society “In order to successfully perform tasks, there needs to be a proper mix of team composition in terms of team knowledge and team skills. Also, the team must work in a good surrounding through a positive team context.(2016, p, 50). In this article the roles of the team members are described and elaborated on discussing the makeup of the team and the how it applies to patient outcomes. As stated in AJSBS,” team nursing allows better communication and enhances accuracy in decision-making processes” (p, 51). The team as a whole have different attributes and skills that develop an efficient team. There are four factors that are addressed , team performance, team composition, team context, team trust. Each factor expands on the roles in the team. Team performance being one factor is as stated in AJSBN “. Team performance is a result of team members’ engagement in task work and teamwork processes that involve activities in completing a task, through collective integration, synthesis, and sharing of information” (p, 51). Team composition is required to have a blend of team members that have collective knowledge, expertise and skills, as stated

Teamwork in nursing is a little different that the teamwork of an actual team. In nursing, there is an ‘I’ in team, except here the ‘I’ stands for independent (QSEN Institute, 2015). Nurses and hospital faculty work their independent jobs, but communicate in order to give the patient the best care possible. Once again as stated before by Berman, the QSEN Institute believes that knowing your team 's strengths and weaknesses will also help you to be able to provide the best care possible.

Realizing that a group can become a high performance team is important. Accomplishing this goal is invaluable, advantageous and profitable. Once able to operate from a group to the high performing team is a great step into preparation into the big business world. Leaders and members must also realize not only how to accomplish this but that some problems will and can arise from different demographic characteristics and cultural diversity. That is if one is in such a group, which the probability would be quite high.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of working in teams? By reference to relevant theory show how can the disadvantages be reduced or avoided.