Teamwork as well as collaboration has been outlined as a major concept for realizing optimal patient care standards by the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN, 2014), and has featured greatly in literature due to the detrimental role this core competence plays. As such, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has endorsed the concept as a major aspect that trainers should focus on so much when preparing health workers for practice. Indeed, evidence indicates that a good number of hospital events that lead to inefficiency and deaths of patients are as a result of failures in collaborative communication. In relation, formulas like the Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation (SBAR) for effective professional interaction have developed and incorporated in practice to enhance the concept. In essence, this concept is essential to the patient, the healthcare providers and also to the entire care fraternity. It is, therefore, important to understand these concepts, their contribution to healthcare, and how best to enhance them.

Disch (2010) defines collaboration as the process of making decisions jointly among the parties that are independent, and further owning the decisions jointly, as well as being ready to take responsibility for the outcomes of those decisions. Teamwork, on the other hand, is the joint action that is carried out by either two or more people. It is, thus, evident that the two concepts are related in that the two concern two or more groups/parties. The healthcare fraternity is a needy area for application of this competency. Caring for a patient involves different parties, namely, the nurses, physicians, physiotherapist, counselors and others. Since all these parties are important in the welfare of the patient and for the provision of effective care, they have to work collaboratively, and as a team (QSEN, 2014).

In a study to analyze the efficacy of the SBAR tool, Beckett and Kipnis (2009) observe that many failure events in the hospitals, and which result in deaths of patients, are due to failure in collaborative communication. The authors reiterate that the different professionals of the healthcare fraternity are trained to communicate in different styles. For example, while nurses communicate descriptively, giving a lot of details that are not necessarily about the diagnosis the physicians are usually brief and specific. Such differences in the styles of communication lead to collaborative communication barriers, affecting the efficiency of team-working, leading to poor patient and healthcare outcomes.

To enhance teamwork and collaboration, the QSEN (2014) recommends a number of steps, including building effective communication skills among healthcare workers. These will go simultaneously with inter-professional teams among the workers. Disch (2010) reiterates that the delegation of authority is a great gesture in promoting collaboration and teamwork, especially between nurse managers and their team members. Building strong teams can be realized by coming up with specific goals, drawing explicit agendas, starting promptly and making sure that everyone understands their role in the team.

In conclusion, teamwork and collaboration are important concepts in the realization of effective care, as outlined by the Institute of Medicine. Failure to observe teamwork and collaboration lead to inefficiencies in the delivery of care. When observed, these competencies fetch benefits for the patient, the healthcare team and the health system in general.

References

Disch, J. (2010). Teamwork and collaboration competency resource paper. Retrieved from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/qsen/Teamwork-Resource-Paper.pdf

Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN). (2014). Competencies-Pre-Licensure KSAS. Retrieved from http://qsen.org/competencies/pre-licensure-ksas/