Teamwork in Healthcare Setting

This article discusses the importance of effective teamwork in healthcare setting and its impact on patient satisfaction, job satisfaction, and workplace engagement. The author shares their clinical experience and provides a theoretical analysis of the five important steps for team development. The article concludes with implications for professional practice and management.

Running head: TEAMWORK IN HEALTHCARE SETTING
TEAMWORK IN HEALTHCARE SETTING
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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TEAMWORK IN HEALTHCARE SETTING
Introduction:
Healthcare is the complex and is seen to involve coordination of different types of
talented professionals so that they can provide high quality as well as safe care to the patients
who are seeking for service (Kalsich et al., 2015). This assignment would be mainly
incorporating experiences that I had during the clinical placement months and would try to
introduce different management techniques by which such situations could be overcome in the
future.
Description of the clinical experience:
During the months of clinical placement, I got the opportunity to be in the shoes of a leader
where my immediate mentor provided me a responsibility to develop a team of five members
and serve the rehabilitation ward attending to the various needs of the patients attending the
long-term care. I was quite excited to get the opportunity to be a leader an immediately informed
them that we were acting as a team. The members were startled at first but since I did not want to
waste time over introduction period, I directly allocated them their task and asked them to
collaborate among themselves. However, a number of issues came into existence where I saw
many of the professionals arguing among themselves over the intervention that they need to
apply. Blame games became very common among the team members. It made me disappointed
and I called the members to make them know that such behaviors would not be accepted. They
stated that they were not comfortable in working with each other and stated that their working
style did not match. I did not pay much importance to it and thought that they were making
excuses. Therefore, I did not pay much heed. However, the result was not satisfactory as the
deadlines were missed, the work done were not aligning with others of the team members, the

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reports prepared about the work were incomplete and many others. My mentor was dissatisfied
and this affected my moral.
Theoretical analysis:
One of the most important issues that were missed out was the proper following of effective
guidelines for the development of team. The team that was developed had not followed the five
important steps that are extremely important for development of teams. The first step of
development of team is called forming. In this step, the team members need to acquaint and
thereby establish the different ground rules. In this step, formalities are mainly preserved and the
members feel as strangers (tofil et al., 2014). While, the team leaders were establishing the team,
it was seen that he had not develop any form of ground rules and therefore the members might
have felt directionless and would have become confused about what need to follow in the teams.
The next step is called the storming step. In this step, the members start to communicate about
their feelings but still they feel themselves as individuals and not as apart of the team. They are
mainly seen to resist the control showed by the team leaders and exhibit hostility. This theory
helped me realize that similar incidence had taken place when the members were blaming each
other and complaining that they were not comfortable with their members. In this step, the team
leaders have an important role to play where they need to conduct meetings and initiate feedback
sessions where the members should provide constructive feedback against each other and
therefore maintain an environment of transparency 9souza et al., 2016). The next step is called
the norming stage and due to my inability to handle the previous step, this step was also affected.
People feel part of the team in the norming stage and they gradually began to realize that they
can achieve the goal of the work when they are ready to accept other’s viewpoints. In the team,
the members were not ready to initiate any communication as power struggles and blames games

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were the two main barriers in the team. As an effective team member, I also failed miserably in
developing a workplace climate where they can communicate effectively by training them the
importance of communication or taking them to informal outings where they can interact with
others. As a result they were not emotionally attached to each other and therefore trust and
bonding could not be formed (yi et al., 2016). The next step is called the performing stage where
the team is mainly seen to work in an open as well as the trusting atmosphere. In such
atmosphere, flexibility is ensured and hierarchy is not given any more importance. Due to the
improper completion of the previous steps, it was seen that the team members could not perform
their best and they were not working collaboratively but were mainly individualistic and
therefore the work they ultimately predicted at the end had no connections with each other.
Moreover, the patients were seen to complain that there the members had provided them
medications twice, some had not even received medications where team members blamed each
other, long waiting times and many others. All these showed that the performing stage
completely failed in the maintenance of effective teamwork. The team environment did not
become enough flexible and a power struggle was still observed among the members that
prevented a collaborative output (Ballard et al., 20150. This step is called the adjourning stage
where the members need to conduct an analysis of the performance and accordingly implements
plan for the transitioning roles and recognitions of the members’ contributions. The team leaders
had not conducted the entire step and therefore, he was not able to understand the various issues
that needed urgent attention and needed to overcome. Therefore, as the steps of the team
formation were not properly followed, therefore, the team that was formed could not function
effectively.

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TEAMWORK IN HEALTHCARE SETTING
Implications for Professional Practice and Management:
Improved teamwork is excessively important for the maintenance of the smooth
workflow with the first positive outcome is that it helps in developing patient satisfaction and
outcome. Effective teamwork ensures proper communication that reduces the chance of
occurrence of medication errors in patients, others type of errors like long waiting times for
patients, ineffective documentation and many others (Zhang et al., 2015). When healthcare plans
are discussed and communicated among team members they remain clear about what needs to be
achieved and therefore this helps in better achievement of patient goals. Moreover, effective
teamwork also has other outcomes. It is seen that this helps in reduction of work burden when
members work together and help each other in times of crisis. Therefore, chances to reduce
workload also reduce emotional pressures on the patients and therefore they can lead better
quality life with proper work balance (Bragodottir et al., 2016). All these lead to higher job
satisfaction as high stress situations are collaboratively handled by the different members.
Moreover, researchers are also of the opinion that teamwork results in increased professional
accountability. They have stated that daily huddles are helpful in e handing accountability by
helping the nurses to be in a loop and thereby helps in reinforcing different changes in policies
and procedures. This again has an effective outcome where the turnover rates of the nurses
become low. As the teamwork reduces work pressures and help in equal distribution of pressure
in times of crisis, burnout syndromes are avoided and this had positive outcome on the health of
the professionals. Moreover, it also helps in development of the workplace climate that helps in
improvement of the engagement in the workplace (Gausvik et al., 2015). Therefore, relationships
shared by the individuals with other colleagues as well as with the organization become

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developed and chances of workplace dissatisfaction become slow. It would help managing the
principle number 10 that involves the collaborative working environment with the other
members of the team and thereby ensure safe and effective work in the ward.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion, it becomes very clear that effective teamwork helps in ensuring
patient safety. They tend to get developed high quality patient care that meets every aspect of
their needs and results in higher satisfaction. Moreover, it also reduced turnover, increases
workplace engagement and increases job satisfaction. Therefore, team leaders should develop
proper skills of team bonding and train their members so that effective teamwork can be ensured.

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References:
Ballard, D. (2015). Teamwork and Nursing: A Generational Comparison (Doctoral dissertation,
Western Connecticut State University).
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Gausvik, C., Lautar, A., Miller, L., Pallerla, H., & Schlaudecker, J. (2015). Structured nursing
communication on interdisciplinary acute care teams improves perceptions of safety,
efficiency, understanding of care plan and teamwork as well as job satisfaction. Journal
of multidisciplinary healthcare, 8, 33.
Kalisch, B. J., Aebersold, M., McLaughlin, M., Tschannen, D., & Lane, S. (2015). An
intervention to improve nursing teamwork using virtual simulation. Western journal of
nursing research, 37(2), 164-179.
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