The Secret to Building a High-Performance Team in Your Clinic

 

Any organization struggles to bring team members together. In healthcare, doing so is critical. These members must learn to resolve conflicts and communicate so they can work together effectively. If they don’t, patient care may suffer. Patient outcomes depend on teams collaborating.

When researching staffing solutions for clinics, business owners need to consider this: Many medical errors result from a communication breakdown among the team. Patient safety is jeopardized when teams don’t work together, and patient mortality rates may climb. Where can teams improve?

Where Can Teams Become More Effective?

There are many areas in healthcare where teams can be more effective. Teams should work together to reconcile medications, plan for a patient’s discharge, provide transition care, and disclose errors. When they do so, they reduce the number of 30-day readmissions. Unfortunately, many teams do not work together effectively unless they have help. An effective team must be created and managed. Healthcare leaders are key in helping teams collaborate effectively and build relationships so members trust one another.

Promoting Effective Teamwork

Healthcare leaders must show team members how to be effective. When onboarding new employees or bringing in temporary workers, they must ensure that this individual transitions smoothly into the team. There are several ways they can do so. 

Healthcare leaders must share goals that the team can work toward and outline each member’s roles and contributions. Clear and open communication is essential for effective collaboration and decision-making. 

All team members must be engaged and appreciate diversity. They must also learn to manage conflict to build trust and cooperative relationships, and leaders need to be a part of this process.

Many organizations struggle to achieve this level of teamwork. When team members change regularly, communication breakdowns are commonplace, and conflict is inevitable. However, these problems can allow the team to grow. Certain obstacles must be removed before it can do so.

Team members must learn they cannot blame others when a problem arises. They must confront issues directly and work together rather than trying to protect their turf. Doing so helps build trust among the team members so everyone can speak openly and share their ideas, observations, and questions.

Team members are likely to leave when they don’t trust one another. Open communication builds trust. Leaders must emphasize this point repeatedly and ensure that all team members understand the strengths and weaknesses of others in their group. They may wish to bring in people from other disciplines who can share their knowledge, skills, and abilities with the team. Doing so often helps the team to work more effectively.

The Future

Team-based care is becoming more commonplace. Each discipline brings skills to the table that help to reduce healthcare costs while improving patient outcomes. Interprofessional teams make decisions together. Working as a team allows them to learn how to communicate better and discuss pertinent issues.

Healthcare leaders must model communication and conflict resolution so team members can learn from them. They can then practice these skills to increase their proficiency and effectiveness. This journey is ongoing.

Team members will leave, and new ones will join. When these transitions are made, healthcare leaders need to emphasize the importance of a collaborative team culture when speaking with new members. In addition, they need to encourage existing team members to mentor the newcomers. Doing so will produce the best outcomes.