Teamwork : A Concept Analysis

Interdisciplinary teams in nursing basically focus on results on the basis that the involved participants share the responsibility for achieving these outcomes. These teams comprise of members from different practices in the healthcare field who gather information to achieve consensus. Based on the required skills at a specific time, the leadership of these teams may be rotated among the associates or team members. In order for the interdisciplinary teams to function effectively in the nursing field, their leaders primarily facilitate instead of directing the collective work. Interdisciplinary teams function effectively through establishing clear goals, evaluating progress, plan ahead, clarify roles, share the leadership, and capitalize on individual talents (Wenckus, 2004).

As a Family Nurse Practitioner teamwork will be uniformly important. This will be extremely important as a novice nurse practitioner. I will need to rely on mentors and experienced nurse practitioners for advice. In addition establishing a rapport with my patients and working together with them as a team is very important. This will enable me to take a leadership role as a provider and take suggestions on how to better manage their health.

Interprofessional team collaboration for professional nurses is viewed as a method to improve the care and safety for patients. However, interprofessional team collaboration presents both advantages and challenges for nurses and other team members. One of the advantages is the coordination of care for the patient and the sharing of knowledge to improve the outcomes for the patient. Challenges for interprofessional team collaboration is: poor role-definition, miscommunication, conflict, lack of accountability for assignment of responsibilities and tasks (Reeves, 2012). This paper will discussion the role of a nurse on an interprofessional team and the challenges, why interprofessional teams promote patient safety, and strategies to promote success interprofessional teams.

During my own personal experience in nursing, I have had the opportunity to witness teamwork at its best, and shamefully, teamwork at its worst. During a shift on a neuro critical care floor, I was assisting a nurse turn and change a patient. Nearly every time we shifted the patient, an alarm would sound. Within moments there was a voice on the other side of the curtain asking if help was needed. Next time the alarm sounded; there was the helpful voice again. It never failed. How comforting for the nurse this must feel, and ultimately, better outcomes, as well as safety for the patient. At the other end of the spectrum, I have watched as a nurse asks for help, and is turned down multiple times. I have heard the awful phrase, “that’s not my job.” I have seen patients code, and the nurse spends the next hour caring for that patient including resuscitation, and transferring to an intensive care unit. No one takes the initiative to check on the nurses patients while she is gone, not even the charge nurse. Clearly this is not a positive or safe work environment for anyone. Teamwork

The nursing teamwork survey is a 33 item questionnaire that finds information from the hospitals’’ staffs concerning the teamwork portrayed among the nurses. Through teamwork, it is expected that there will be an increase in the quality of work and service delivery. The 33-item questionnaire had a Likert type scale that helped in the estimation of the teamwork among nurses by placing them between “always” and “rarely” (Kalisch & Lee, 2011, p. 84). The nursing teamwork survey used literature

I believe teamwork is essential in my role as a nurse. I love nursing because it is a structured job. There are policies and procedures to follow, routines to your everyday shift. I am trustworthy. At my job, I am a charge nurse, part of the leadership team that helps to maintain structure on my floor.

During the team formation, a number of challenges manifested. Firstly, it was the fact that there were nurses from other units. Hence, there were fears that they may not be well informed with procedures undertaken in our unit. However, this challenged was effectively addressed by assigning the nurses from other units a nurse from our unit to help her during the emergency period.

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

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.

In team nursing the responsibilities usually divided in between the personnel, so that everyone’s has its own role in patient’s care.

To understand the term “Interprofessional team working” I have been working within a subset group where everyone has a different health profession background course such as child nursing, social worker, occupational therapist and myself as an adult nursing. On part 1, I will be discussing about themes social policy and culture and diversity. And on part 2, I will reflect my team working using different models and will mention our strength and weakness.

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.

effectiveness (Cioffi & Ferguson, 2009). Therefore, it is important to ensure that nurses who assume leader roles have the skills to manage and delegate tasks as required. There must be clearly defined roles and responsibilities for each team member that take into account the levels of expertise among the members. It can be troublesome when team members do not carry their share of the work. When this occurs, other team members take on an additional work burden to address the shortfalls in patient care. If the team leader is unable to provide clarity and direction for the team, the model will not be effective.

The team model allows the utility of nonprofessional nursing personnel such as LPNs and nursing assistants, through delegation and observation by an RN while holding a team leader accountable.( Tiedeman&Lookinland,2004) The focus is to work collaboratively and cooperatively with shared responsibilities, and to some extent accountabilities, for assessment, planning, delivering, and evaluation of patient care. ( Tiedeman&Lookinland,

Teamwork and communication are very important in providing good quality care, especially in the healthcare field. A team is described as a group of people that works together and cooperatively, between each member of the group to reach a common goal (Sullivan, 2013). For a team to function, communication is essential. A report by McKay and Crippen (2008), as stated by Alfaro-LeFevre, (2013) showed that when collaboration is in place, hospitals can decrease their mortality rate by 41%. When mortality rate is lower, hospitals does not only decreased cost, but it also means that patients are receiving good quality care.