TEAMWORK. TEAM WORK FOR TOTAL QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN PATIENTS CARE PRESENTED AT THE QUALITY IMPROVEMENT SEMINAR ORGANIZED BY THE MANAGEMENT, NEURO-PSYCHIATRIC.

TEAMWORK

TEAM WORK FOR TOTAL QUALITYIMPROVEMENT IN PATIENT’S CARE

PRESENTEDAT THE QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

SEMINAR ORGANIZED BY THE MANAGEMENT,NEURO-PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL,ARO

ABEOKUTA

VENUE: CONFERENCE HALL IDATE 22ND – 29TH FEBRUARY 2012

BYMR ADEWOYIN J. A.R.P.N. R.N B.SC MPA

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF NURSING SERVICES.

Introduction:

The essence of team work is to promote

efficiency and ensure a sound service delivery in the public sector.

Team building has become a voque in the world of work for the following reasons:

 Specialization within organization: More and more specialists are being

created by the division of labour. Inevitably, individual jobs are narrowed into specific channels.

Synergy: The benefit of an organization when

people do  collaborative work is obvious. The

resultant synergy is advantageous as ‘none of us is as smart as all of us’. A lot of creative power resides in all the minds put together.

Participation: Increasingly, workers are seeking to become

more actively involved in all the aspects of their work. Organizational survival today, depends on creativity. The ability to adapt to a changing environment is an essential ingredient to keep the organization in business. It has become paramount more than ever before, that organization uses all talents available in their human resources to facilitate problem-solving and keep the business afloat in austere time.

Oxford Advanced learner’s dictionary defined team as;

a group of people who play a particular game or sport against another group of people e.g football.

A team is a collection of individuals with a common task, who interact with one another to achieve a common goal. It is equally working together in unison by a group of people towards the achievement of an agreed or organizational goal.

Oxford Advanced learner’s dictionary equally defined Teamwork as the activity of working well together as a team.

Teamwork is the ongoing process of interaction between team members as they work together to provide care to patients.

Teamwork depends on a willingness to cooperate, co-ordinate and communicate while remaining focused on a shared goal of achieving optimal outcomes for our patients.

Teamwork is essential in an organization or a business to be successful! Brainstorming, hardwork, contribution, and vision of all the members together can lead to the success of a venture or winning of a game. A team is when different individuals come together to interact and socialize with the interest of realizing a particular objectives.

A team can be viewed from the perspective of

internal nature of groups:  How they are formed Why they are formed What are their structure and processes How they affect individual members in

the organization.

Teamwork is all about collective actions, responsibilities of a group of people and not a particular person.

Teamwork is all about how workers could adjust and re-adjust to new ideas. Change is the only thing that’s constant in life.

For example, time changes, condition changes, situation changes, ideas changes, everything changes in any organization, and team members must be prepared for change.

To achieve better cooperation and reduce conflict, strike and improve work attendance.

To make for better utilization of human resources and achieve more efficiency and high productivity.

To reduce feelings of alienation and achieve more workers satisfaction.

To bring about organizational democracy and more individual’s influence.

To defend, promote and bring about more balanced representation of individual’s interests.

To enable individuals to satisfy their wishes such as opportunity to show their personal worth fully, opportunity to obtain recognition and advancement etc.

To build team spirit and team work. To foster acceptance of and prevent resistance

to organizational change through enhanced communication.

  Management Team - Top Management

Committee, Head of Departments, Work Teams.

Recommendation Team - Committees, Task Forces.

Work Team-Focus on performance results, meet target/delivery date.

Formal groups: A formal group is said to be formal if its

creations, structure and activities are determined by rules, and procedures which are rigid, and orderly in pattern and arrangement.

A formal group facilitates the coordination of activities or functions of an organization, helps in establishing logical relationship among people and realization of a common goals.

Informal groups:It is not the opposite of formal group. It is a part

of formal group; It comes up as a result of the inadequacies in the formal group. In informal groups, there is no intimidation but the presence of warm relationship between superiors and subordinates existing with feelings of appreciation, respect and love.

Rigidity is not involved.Team members have free will that arouse strong

feeling of awareness in the group members.

Sharing of important information about change; plans for change, and the outcome of that change must be the concern of every team member.

There must be strong sense of belonging if the group has to be effective and productive.

Team must allow for re-adjustment of team members during stress as a result of change.

Team must have collective vision and its own mission statement.

Team leader must be creative, influential and open to criticism. Achievements must always be celebrated by the team collectively.

Appropriate Leadership: He is full of abilities, e.g. flexibility and honesty. He

keeps the team focused by delegating responsibility, creating climate for risk taking, ensuring open communication, leading people and facilitating decisions, de-emphasizing implements of position and power, sharing tasks, encouraging members feelings and recognizing team’s achievements.

Hence a leader can come from any professional group. Team leaders must praise their team members, give them the freedom to work as they ‘deem fit’, seek their advice and follow it when necessary. They must be genuinely interested in the welfare or their team members.

Effective team work: Through setting up of right atmosphere, clear

direction, effective communication, freedom of expression, team blend, consensus decision making, empowerment, Team Leadership and performance review.

Complimentary Skills:In a team, people with different talents use

their skills to contribute ideas and solutions.

Group Size: To generate useful and rich ideas, the people

should not be few in number but not too large.Common Purpose:There must be common purpose that binds all

members together. The team effort must be focused on the defined business mission. Team leader must build confidence in their team members. He must be involved and stay involved with the team. A team leader has to be among the team always not sitting alone in his executive office.

Membership of team does not just happen or is automatic. No two persons or individuals are exactly the same. Individuals differ significantly in terms of physical attributes, value, orientation, beliefs, emotional disposition, and so on. A crucial question to be asked here is how possible is it that these human beings with diverse characteristics would work together more or less as one entity? The answers to these questions then bring us to a discussion of the stages in the development of a team.

The need for teamwork in healthcare administration and public sector in general cannot be overemphasized. This is because all health workers are heavily

interdependent and interrelated in the discharge of their duties to achieve the same objective of freeing the society of disease, or to cure those who are already sick, or to reduce the amount of pain expressed by individuals (Oluboyede 2006).

Building of a health team connotes that every members of the team has his or own responsibility and commands respect and dignity, irrespective of one’s position in the team. Everybody has a sense of belonging and therefore feels important rather than feel slighted and belittled.

The healthcare process has been developed as a concept that attempt to blend together the various facets of healthcare delivery and show the interrelationship and interdependence of all the professional interest groups involved in providing healthcare for the patient.

The modern healthcare outfit, essentially at the tertiary, secondary and primary levels required some form of organization to ensure effective delivery of healthcare to the populace. The process of attaining this objective requires the cooperation and coordination of the efforts of the numerous professionals who contribute meaningfully to the provision of healthcare.

The multiplicity and diversity of professional interest groups vary and increase in scope as one moves from the primary through the secondary to the tertiary levels. Since healthcare is multidisciplinary in nature, absolute cooperation between the various groups is not only desirable but necessary for its smooth operation and effective delivery.

For instance the pharmacist is the acknowledged professional with a monopoly over the procurement, production and dispensation of drugs and other ethical products. No effective healthcare can be delivered in the absence of these essentials, over which he has an absolute control.

The Laboratory Scientists in their diverse specialties hold the key to the accurate diagnosis of most aliment and disease conditions including tissues preservation and post mortem exercises. They are frontline healthcare providers in their own right.

The patient Imaging scientist (Radiographers) provide essential X-ray films for diagnosis to medical practice. The same can be said in varying degrees for virtually every professional group in the health care organization.

Doctors Role;Full medical Assessment of Patient,

including comprehensive psychiatric history taking mental state examination, physical

Examination and request for necessary Laboratory investigation.

Prescribing drugs for PatientsReview of medical conditions of patientsAdmission and Discharge of patients

Nurses Role; Triage Assessment of patient including vital signs

monitoring, mental status examination, Physical examination etc.

 Full assessment of patient including comprehensive Psychiatric history taking.

Creation and maintenance of therapeutic environment.

Proper administration of medications. Ensuring that patient take their prescribed drugs rightly.

General patients observationCounseling & health-education

In coordinating the efforts of the multi-disciplinary team and their multifarious interests, the healthcare manager provides the enabling environment for all to function, optimally striving to smoothen all part of healthcare process to evolve. The process on its own seeks to blend together the diverse professional interests involved in the provision of healthcare delivery to all-important patient.

It seeks to highlight the interdependent nature of the professional inputs and the obvious fact that no single group can and should highjack the scene as if it were a one-man show. Most professionals involved in the delivery of healthcare are highly respected in the society because of their high skill and professional background. By virtue of these apparent qualities and responsibilities, they compliment each other’s efforts for a common goal.

The example of theconstruction industrylends itself to emulation,where the Engineer, theArchitect and the QuantitySurveyor work together without unnecessary

squabble for leadership or domination.They complement each other’s  roles without much ado.

The healthcare industry presents an opportunity for even greater cooperation if only practitioners focus their attention on the patient and how best to serve this  needs.

 In conclusion, the advantages of Team work include the following among others:

Integration of specialists/experts in an organization, thereby increasing success rates. More organizational members increasingly involved in their total work environment

Increased productivity, improved customer service, more flexible systems and highly motivated staff.

 Provides possibilities for empowerment that are not available to individual employees.

 Builds commitment and support for new ideas among staff and community members and provides effective learning process of professionals.

  1. Argyris, C. (1962)” Inter personal competence and Organizational effectiveness”   2. Beach Dales (1980) “ Personal Management of people at Work” - New York   3. Cole (1993) Motivation: A way of life, The Social Influence process   4. T. Appleby and R. Davis” Team work used to save money, now it Saves lives” US Today 2001 in

Stephen P. Robins and Mary Coulter’s Management PPH 2005.   5. John C. Maxwell “Team Work Makes Dream Work (J.

Countryman, Nashville, Tennessee, 2001   6. Oluboyede, A. (2009) “Team Building in Hospitals”   7. Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary, 6th Edition.

THANKS FOR LISTENING adewoyin J.

A. (2012)