PLX Academy · Personal Experiences · 6 February 2023
Healthcare professionals agree that working well as a team and talking to each other clearly lowers the chance that a patient will get hurt. It also increases job satisfaction and staff engagement. Effective communication in healthcare teams reduces the chance of mistakes and improves the quality of service and patient care. But an article in Harvard Medicine Magazine says that teamwork as a core value is often missing in health care, which makes it hard to get the most out of it.
As a general rule, the article says that working well as a team requires a collaborative mindset that shows a commitment to building good relationships. When you have a collaborative mindset, you respect your coworkers and what they bring to patient care that you don’t. Also, this way of thinking makes healthcare workers more aware of how their actions affect the actions of their teammates, which in turn affects clinical outcomes. With a collaborative mindset, teams are natural places to integrate, try new things, and improve quality.
Pitfall:“Us versus them”
Human nature is one of the things that makes it hard to develop this mental framework. When we don’t have enough information, we often assume the worst about other people’s intentions. When someone’s actions don’t lead to the result we want, we tend to be suspicious and think they are trying to do us harm.
This trait, however, doesn’t help us with our healthcare colleagues in the modern world. It often makes people think “us against them.” “They” are either lazy, uncommitted, or not smart. We see a character flaw when we see a problem in someone else. We don’t make the same allowances for them as we do for ourselves or other people in our group when there are special circumstances. This response, in turn, leads to division, distrust, and fighting between groups.
Suspend Judgement
When we have a collaborative mindset, we assume that everyone is trying their best and give others the benefit of the doubt when there is a conflict. Before coming to a negative conclusion, we wait to make a decision and ask for more information. Inquiry is a powerful tool that can stop people from being biased, stop misunderstandings, and keep relationships strong.
Using this method will also let us step in if a teammate makes a bad guess about another team member. When people on the healthcare team say bad things about each other, it not only hurts teamwork, but it also makes it harder for people to trust each other. When we gently tell people they’re wrong when they talk badly about other people, we show real leadership.
Value Team Integration
Research shows that team-based care can make healthcare safer, more efficient, and of higher quality. Using the unique skills and points of view that each team member brings helps hospitals meet the needs of patients and improve the health of populations.
Effective teams know each other’s roles and responsibilities and agree on them. This lets them act appropriately and work well together. This idea is also used in the military, software development, music performance, and space travel. It’s not enough for everyone to do their part; we also have to think about how our part fits in with what other team members are doing. Interdisciplinary care is all about putting these parts together.
Create Psychological Safety
A collaborative mindset is also important for making teams that are psychologically safe and welcome everyone. Amy Edmonson, a professor at Harvard, came up with the term “psychological safety” to describe a place where people feel safe, can be curious, are given the power to take part, and are allowed to be vulnerable. Psychological safety is an important differentiator in creating learning organizations where people can grow and help improve performance. In this kind of setting, there is also a lot of professional satisfaction and fulfillment. Creating and spreading psychological safety in healthcare organizations is the job of both leaders and individual team members.
By making teamwork a core value, every member of the clinical team can help put more emphasis on how people depend on each other. This approach could change how we talk to each other in clinical settings and, in the end, change the way healthcare is done. To make hospitals work better as a team, look at the education of the staff and give them training.