Capella University
NURS-FPX9100: Defining the Nursing Doctoral Project
Prof. Laurel Pilkington
February 21, 2024
Team Effectiveness in Health Care Settings
Team efforts in healthcare settings enable professionals to deliver care according to clients’ needs and expectations. The strategy describes efforts to accomplish individual and shared goals and objectives through sharing of knowledge, skills, and experiences. Everyone should commit to teamwork to align their competencies with evidence-based practices in the healthcare sector. This project is about reducing patient falls in the medical-surgical unit. The quality improvement initiative seeks to examine prevention measures, assessment of risk factors, and organizational commitment to managing patients after falls. The topic matters because it addresses the need for improved safety and quality of care. Notably, fall prevention helps balance priorities identified by the organization, patients, and their families when delivering care in the medical-surgical unit.
The stakeholders include the Chief Nursing Officer, the project team, patients, and the nurse educator. The group understands the challenges in the medical-surgical unit including the risk of patient falls. Successful improvements could enable the stakeholders to make significant contributions in enhancing the quality and safety of care. The practicum site selected is White Plains Hospital located in New York City. The facility is reputable for its commitment to innovative and high-quality care. Healthcare teams at the hospital have the unique skills and experiences that make them more responsive to patients’ needs. The general medical and surgical facility provides exceptional care and customer experiences, which explains its ranking as one of the best hospitals in the United States (Cuttler et al., 2017). Notably, White Plains excels in handling individuals with complex healthcare needs, including the sickest group. White Plains is also diverse based on the commitment to recruiting professionals from different cultural backgrounds. The facility is among the reputable ones in terms of ethnic diversity. The organization also has more female and ethnic minorities employees, revealing the dedication to allowing everyone to work at the facility. August 2022 is the anticipated completion date. The duration is appropriate to avoid rushing deliverables or overruns that may jeopardize the quality of the output.
Best Practices of Effective Health Care Teams
Competitive healthcare organizations have professionals who understand the impact of collaborated and coordinated care. The primary goal is to maximize customer satisfaction characterized by effective communication and response to patient falls. Thus, everyone should willingly express the desire to work with colleagues to deliver the best care. One identified practice is the commitment to excellence (Rosen et al., 2018). The process entails reminding individuals of their personal and career obligations and their contribution to the project’s success. Professionals understand the need to work together with others to streamline healthcare functions. The second practice is having well-defined roles and responsibilities. Everyone in the team should understand their mandate to avoid duplication of tasks and minimize frictions among colleagues (Rosen et al., 2018). Clearly defined roles for everyone guides them to pay attention to tasks and deliver the best outcomes possible.
Further, it is necessary to emphasize sharing knowledge and skills throughout the project. The practice reinforces individuals and groups’ commitment to exchanging ideas and delivering care based on exceptional critical thinking and problem-solving. Successful teams also communicate efficiently and effectively (Buljac-Samardzic et al., 2020). Accurate, timely, and complete information is necessary to encourage members to respond to issues and remain up to date with events throughout the project. Communication is also vital for creating a friendly working environment characterized by compassion, emotional intelligence, awareness, and regulation (Buljac-Samardzic et al., 2020). Excellent interactions also allow members to remain respectful when seeking feedback about errors and other deficiencies that may affect the outcome.
Analysis of Practicum Site Team Effectiveness
The chosen site has healthcare professionals with the knowledge and experiences needed to sustain quality and safe care. The group understands events in the healthcare sector and their implications on their organizational success. Notably, the team is highly responsive based on the culture of collaboration and coordination. One example of team effectiveness is the clarity of roles such everyone understands what their position requires (Schumtz et al., 2019). The diverse nature of competencies at the site means that everyone should perform their tasks according to the organization’s expectations. Team effectiveness is also evident from the sharing of knowledge, skills, and experiences to optimize outcomes. The members have different competencies required to identify issues and empower others to respond on time.
The other element of team effectiveness is communication. The excellent interactions among members mean that everyone understands the need for collaborative efforts to deliver the best services. The goal is to create and sustain a welcoming environment where individuals provide accurate and complete feedback for a timely response to operational issues (Zajac et al., 2021). However, one area of concern is instances when it becomes challenging to make decisions on time. The hierarchical nature of the environment and immense experience among professionals create uncertainties in terms of the members in charge of making the final decisions. Further, power distances may cause disgruntlement or withdrawal as some members choose to remain silent during critical moments. Another issue is the busy nature of professionals at White Plains Hospital. The tight schedules and dedication to delivering timely and quality care could affect the reflexivity of the team. For example, it may be difficult to engage nurses in the medical-surgical unit because the facility mainly specializes in surgery. In this case, the nurses are always busy handling patients and fulfilling other duties within the department.
Recommendations to Improve Team Effectiveness
The weaknesses in the team call for sustainable solutions to make everyone highly functional. One of the issues raised is decision-making complications triggered by the hierarchical nature of the workforce. The solution is to agree on the parties responsible for guiding the team to make key decisions (Schumtz, et al., 2019). In this sense, there is clarity of the members in charge of functions and their ability to help members make informed decisions that match the team’s aspirations. Equally, the team leader should emphasize the team’s commitment to maintaining an inclusive atmosphere where everyone’s ideas are important in improving the quality and safety of care. The team can also address challenges caused by the busy nature of the workforce. The idea is to ensure that everyone acknowledges the need for interdependency and the desire to share experiences and ideas to achieve the best outcomes. The team can utilize the advice of a consultant to educate members on the best decision-making practices and flexible collaboration and coordination of tasks.
Analysis of Individual Performance as a Team Member
Team members have the personal obligations to adhere to the principles of teamwork and help others achieve the intended outcomes. It is vital to embrace shared goals, beliefs, and values to achieve meaningful results. One should openly share ideas and ask questions that help improve the quality of the project. The commitment to sharing knowledge and skills also make a member responsive to providing objective feedback on issues arising throughout the project (Rosen et al., 2018). It is also vital to embrace effective communication skills by showing self-awareness and regulations when handling teammates. The goal is to reduce the risk of conflicts by making the team environment conducive for everyone. However, there are individual weaknesses that may undermine the effectiveness of the team. One main issue is conflicts resolution where disagreements may escalate to toxic levels. For instance, I prefer positive criticism sine the negative ones make me emotional and may jeopardize the desire to remain active throughout the project. The second issue involves weaker negotiation skills such that it becomes difficult to achieve mutual goals within the anticipated time.
Recommendations to Improve Individual Performance as a Team Member
Every team member has responsibility for maintaining a favorable environment throughout the project. Proactive practices call for emotional regulation, self-awareness, and intelligence to embrace others’ ideas and avoid escalating conflicts. It is crucial to pursue mutual respect where everyone seeks to address conflicts amicably. Self-awareness and self-regulation are priorities that allow everyone to maintain a happy team environment (Buljac-Samardzic et al., 2020). Therefore, individuals should dedicate themselves to controlling emotions, understanding others’ interests, and sustaining effective interpersonal exchanges throughout the project. I will commit myself to collaborate with team members by portraying the right attitudes and behaviors. The right personality is necessary to encourage others to remain proactive in sharing ideas on the best ways to achieve the anticipated outcomes.
References
Buljac-Samardzic, M., Doekhie, K., & Wijngaarden, J. (2020). Interventions to improve team effectiveness within health care: A systematic review of the past decade. Human Resources for Health, 18(2), 1-40. https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-019-0411-3
Cuttler, S., Barr-Walker, J., & Cuttler, L. (2017). Reducing medical-surgical inpatient falls and injuries with videos, icons, and alarms. BMJ Open Quality, 6, 1-8. https://bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/6/2/e000119
Rosen, M., Granados, D., Dietz, A., Benishek, L., Thompson, D., Pronovost, P., & Weaver, S. (2018). Teamwork in healthcare: Key discoveries enabling safer, high-quality care. American Psychologist, 73(4), 433-450. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6361117/
Schumtz, J., Meier, L., & Mnaser, T. (2019). How effective is teamwork really? The relationship between teamwork and performance in healthcare teams: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open, 9, 1-15. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/9/9/e028280.full.pdf
Zajac, S., Woods, A., Tannenbaum, S., & Salas, E. (2021). Overcoming challenges to teamwork in healthcare: A team effectiveness framework and evidence-based guidance. Frontiers in Communication, 6, 1-20. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.606445/full