Question: effective health care teams have several important characteristics, including:
Options :
1] Health care teams should have the ability to practice together like other sports teams.
2] They should get good results without strong communication skills.
3] Health care teams should have effective two-way communication/effective communication techniques.
4]Health care team should include the same member each day.
Answer: Option 3] Health Care Team should have effective two-way communication/effective communication techniques.
Explanation (Easy to Understand)
Why are effective health care teams important?
In the health care sector, the need for effective health care teams is growing exponentially. There are so many incidents happening where patients are not appropriately treated. Because of a shortage of staffing. The rate of medical conditions of the general population is increasing. People who are suffering from chronic diseases are also increasing. Dute all these reasons, effective health care teams are very important. Now effective health care teams have several important characteristics, including:
- Effective Two-way Communication
- Common Values, Goals/Mission
- Predefined Roles
- Shared Knowledge and skills
- Respecting Each other
- Optimistic and positive attitude towards assigned work
- Multidisciplinary
- Work under extreme workload conditions
Let’s learn each point one by one. Keep reading to better understand and implement listed characteristics within your health care teams or yourself as an effective team player.
Effective Health Care Teams Have Several Important Characteristics, Including:
1) Effective Two Way Communication
Let’s consider one situation where one person came to your clinic, and the receptionist observed him, and he seemed a bit sick. That person went to the clinic just for a routine checkup. And he told the scheduler that he is feeling fine. But before a few moments, the person could barely stand on his feet and went to take his seat. A receptionist has observed it. Now it’s her responsibility to tell the scheduler/physician about her experience with that person. It means the receptionist must have effective communication with other team players such as sisters, schedulers, physicians. If she told this to the scheduler, the scheduler might have informed about the same with the physician, and the physician might have taken care of that person properly. That’s why effective health care teams must have effective communication within.
2) Common Values, Goals/Missions
Have you thought about this? What may be the common goal of the effective health care team member? Taking care of the patient coming to your clinic.
Right?
You may say, “YES!”
But the reality is always different. You may or may not agree with me, but I would like to say this, Team members are giving the highest priority to “Pleasing the Doctor.” Because somehow, the doctor is the main authoritative person under whom all team members are functioning. If your goals are to please a doctor, you will likely fail to give proper attention to the patient. All team members must have a shared goal, and that goal must be “taking care of the patient.” You need to start working on the “patient first policy.” Attending patients properly should be the high-Priority work. If you want to be an effective health care team player, you should be focused towards shared goals, i.e., patient-first policy.
3) Predefined Roles
Predefined roles is very important characteristics of a healthcare team. Because as per this characteristics, every health care team player knows their roles. They know, What their responsibilities are. Everyone has predefined roles. So that when they will be treating patients with a clear mind. They will not feel confused saying that’s not my task or that’s my task. If you assign the predefined roles to everyone, they will do their work in a much more organized way. I remember one incident that happened right in front of me. I was at one physiotherapist clinic. There was one patient, he was crying out of pain and asking for a doctor. However, there was no one at the receptionist’s table. And the patient’s condition was very critical. I felt very bad for him, and I immediately went in search for the doctor. The doctor used to live just above the clinic, and hopefully, I found him, and I told him about the patient’s condition. He immediately came down and took him into the room, and started his treatment. And later on, he scolded the nurse, receptionist, and other clinic staff because of their irresponsibility. Just imagine, if everyone had an idea about their role, then nothing would’ve happened. Everything must have been done smoothly. That’s why effective health care teams should have “predefined roles.”
4) Shared Knowledge and Skills
Health care team players should have to have shared KnowledgeKnowledge and skills. This is important if the team members are trained in more than one task, it will be great for you to delegate multiple responsibilities to the same member. If you are training your team member in just one particular task, you are likely failing. Because there will be difficult situations where you may face huge losses because of lack of skilled workforce, on the other hand, if you have trained team players in multiple tasks, then they will perform those tasks whenever necessary. You will train your staff in various tasks so that they will not feel crippled in a difficult situation. An effective health care team has several important characteristics, And “Shared knowledge and skills” is one of the most important characteristics.
5) Respecting Each Other
Health care team members must have respect for each other. They should respect each other in the team. They should respect everyone’s work. Let’s consider one scene; you are working at one company where you are not getting any respect from your co-workers. Your co-workers are disgustingly treating you. You will feel ashamed whenever you do talk with them. You are the only one who has that kind of skill that the company exactly wants. Just imagine if your co-workers are treating you that way. Are you able to continue your work?. Even Though you are the kingpin of the company, you will still try to find a new job somewhere where you will get a healthy environment. We can relate the same scenario to health care team players. If your staff have a healthy relationship, all team members will enjoy their work; they all enjoy working with one another. As everyone is happy, the work will be very effective. But what if any of you are not being treated respectfully just because of their incompetence to perform a particular task. Then that particular team player will feel down. And this may cause trouble in team bonding. Make sure you treat all team players equally and respectfully. You should maintain a positive and blissful environment among the team members. That’s how everyone performs all types of work on the field correctly and happily.
6) Optimistic And Positive Attitude Towards Assigned Work
In one of the adages, it is said that the one who has optimism and a positive attitude cannot get defeated easily. Being an optimistic and positive person is crucial while living life joyously. A negative attitude harms your mentality. You might have felt many times whenever you have essential work to do. And you are feeling anxious. Do you know? Why do you feel this anxiety, and how can you overcome it. Your mind is trying to think negatively. That means you may get thought patterns such as what if I fail to complete that work, What will happen if I won’t meet the deadline. This type of negative thought pattern comes into your mind, and you suddenly start feeling fear in your heart. And Your chances of failing will likely increase. Do you know all this happened just because of negative thinking? That’s why I said earlier; negative thinking is very harmful.
Being positive and optimistic is critically important. An effective health care team has several important characteristics, and an optimistic and positive attitude towards assigned work is one of them. Let’s get back to the previous situation, where you need to perform a critical task. What if, throughout the process, you were very positive and optimistic with your approach? Then you will be able to perform that work seamlessly. Though only positive thinking will not solve the problem, at least it will not negatively impact your mind. Positive thinking will create space in your mind and create space for clear and constructive thinking where you will be able to find solutions effectively. An effective health care team should have an optimistic approach towards the assigned work.
7) Multidisciplinary
Multidisciplinary teams mean the team in which all team members are from different professions such as nurses, social, occupational therapists, counselors, etc., and these people form a team. And make a decision regarding the patient. The health care team should be multidisciplinary. That means it also involves people from different professions. It will help to build proper communication among themselves. And they will do all the tasks by coordinating with each other strategically. Having a team of multidisciplinary people helps utilize their specialized KnowledgeKnowledge. Everyone must be good with their KnowledgeKnowledge and skills, which can be utilized while performing health care operations. Multidisciplinary teams deliver many positive outcomes for patients. If the team performs by coordinating each other properly, then all tasks will be performed properly.
8) Work Under Extreme Workload Conditions
An effective health care team performs work under extreme pressure without losing coordination with other team players. Many times extreme workload conditions occur in the hospital. Many people lose their minds in extreme pressurized situations. In this type of situation, maintaining a peaceful mind became extremely important. You Should be able to perform your work no matter what kind of situation it is. An effective health care team member must work under extreme workload conditions. They should be taught these things in their training. At the training time, all team members must perform a particular task under extreme workload conditions to check competency. You can practice this by creating some random scene and practice like everything is happening in reality. And ask yourself calmly how you perform if you go through this situation. If you teach your health care team by putting an imaginary workload condition, you are likely making them better by improving their qualities regarding handling typical situations.
Conclusion
As stated earlier, In a nutshell, An effective health care teams have several important characteristics, including Effective Two way Communication, Common Values, Goals/Mission, Predefined Roles, Shared KnowledgeKnowledge and skills, Respecting Each other, Optimistic and positive attitude towards assigned work, Multidisciplinary, Work under extreme workload conditions. Every health care team must imbibe these characteristics. Effective health care teams’ characteristics can be developed by proper training by professionals.
