To me, this seems to refer to nurses and doctors working together. Along with other staff, there needs to be constant communication. If there isn’t, the hospital becomes a less safe environment for everyone. This includes staff and patients alike. I would assume this is crucial in all settings but especially a hospital.
I think the most important topic when discussing better teamwork in Hospitals is communication. Communication is the key to everything, and it is necessary to have great team work. Without communication, the whole team structure would quickly fall apart.
There’s no better way to figure out what will help people the most than to just straight up ask them. Surveys, interviews, emails, whatever tool works best – as long as people are getting helped! I asked a few of my visitors, test takers, and researchers to share their thoughts to help me better understand how people work. I’m sharing it with you in hopes you’d get something out of it, too. I’m also trying to bring their words to you with as little filtering as possible, so please bear with the awesome level of personal-tough this article has.
Now’s the time to focus on your professional development, your career growth, and the overall future of all things job related.
Today’s Focus: Better Teamwork In Hospitals
‘R’ = Richard N. Stephenson (me!)
‘I’ = Interviewee (anonymous by request unless otherwise noted)
R: Explain why this topic is important to people like you and me.
I: Having great teamwork in hospitals allows for better patient care and a more pleasant work environment. When nurses and doctors work together to ensure proper protocol is followed, patient injuries and accidents are reduced. It also lightens the work load of all employees when they work together to accomplish tasks.
R: How could this subject help you or someone you know change your life for the better?
I: Everyone, at some point in their life, will be affected by health needs and hospitals are there to provide the necessary service of attending to these needs. Unfortunately, a lot of problems are caused by the hospitals themselves due to poor organization. Better teamwork in hospitals would absolutely have a positive effect on the lives of those who need health services for many reasons. Firstly, some people have a number of chronic conditions that require more than one doctor, specialist, medication, treatment, treatment center, and so on. Better teamwork among a hospital, its staff, and its network as a whole ensures that the patient gets the best care for his or her composite needs. Secondly, a lot of small errors can build up due to the inefficiency of having too many people handle too many things without good communication and team effort. Clearly, better teamwork in hospitals would eliminate many of these errors and help the staff to provide the best service and communication possible.
R: Improving those around us is a key concept in life-optimization. How do you think this topic fits in?
I: Teamwork can have a great results, and it can make people happier to come to work. When great results come out of things, it increases the motivation and the want to do well. It is positive reinforcement to do your best.
R: Describe the perfect person to be the poster-child for this topic.
I: Several types of people would be good at understanding this topic. Nurses and doctors would understand this topic quite well. People who perform difficult surgeries would also understand because they often need several people to help them.
R: Break it down for me real quick: who just plain sucks at this topic?
I: An individual who might be considered a “loner” in their personal life. A second personality type is someone who like to work alone at an assigned task. Such a person might be personally pleasant, but is more comfortable completing a set of assigned tasks, without being particularly interested in what precedes or follows what the work they do.
R: How could the average person plan to bring this topic into the stuff they do on a daily basis?
I: A good way to learn about how to work in teams is to find a team and work within that team. Another way to learn more about teams is by attending a seminar all about working in teams. You can find them be simple searching for seminars in your area.
R: Pick a time, pick any time: when should folks out there bring this idea into their lives?
I: A good time would be as soon as a person is hired in the hospital. It is important to know how to work together as a team. People need to be able to get along with their coworkers so that they can work more efficiently.
R: When do you think folks should absolutely NOT work on this topic?
I: If someone is recently graduating or working on graduating from a medical professional school, it would likely be a bad time to bring up the need for better teamwork in hospitals. Say a person is on their last clinical rotations, it would probably be discouraging for them to hear or discuss this topic. They likely already understand the need for better teamwork and communication and, at this peak time of their career beginning, that would probably be the last thing on their mind.
R: Where can regular people like you and me plan to bring this into our daily routine?
I: I think the best environment would be one that allowed all facets of the staff to express themselves and be appreciated for their roles. As the staff continues to rely on each other, sharing achievements and working through defeats is key. An ideal situation, I feel, would be one that allowed the staff to see each other at an eye to eye, or personal level, without the hospital hierarchy looming overhead.
R: Where is a really bad place to start working on this topic?
I: A situation where a staff member is unable to gain access to their team with sufficient enough time or at all. Then that person would have to function alone and without any assistance. If that person relied too heavily on one of his or her teammates for a certain procedure then they might have a hard time caring for their patient and could put the patient at risk. This could be as a result of some type of emergency (hurricane, tornado, car accident, shooting, etc). Teamwork is nice, but everyone must still be well-rounded; independent of the team.
R: What kind of person would benefit from looking into this subject further?
I: Better teamwork benefits the organization as a whole. That helps alleviate redundancies and also helps build camaraderie. If each person is contributing to the tasks it helps lighten the load for everyone.
R: Can you give us any hints or tips for working this topic into our lives?
I: To better understand this you should read some books about teamwork and leadership. After doing this you should try to job shadow some nurses or hospital administrators or perhaps doctors. By having the hands on experience of following these hospital workers with your knowledge of teamwork you can reach some conclusions about teamwork as it relates to hospitals.
R: Give me an idea of something people should avoid in learning more about this topic.
I: I believe that people should avoid being a part of a clique. I also believe that people should avoid being unprofessionally close to their coworkers, such as marital relationships. They should also absolutely not fight in front of the patient.
R: This topic is broad and the readers will need some focus. Can you help guide them along with an example of what to do next?
I: They can create a plan with everyone associated in the team, and let everyone know that teamwork is essential to deliver the best performance to clients. With this plan, they can make sure that everyone is on the same page, and that they are clear on what is expected of them. Having set goals and regulations helps the teamwork to increase.
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Did you find at least one or two golden nuggets of useful information in there? I hope so – I know I love reading these and seeing how I can apply this wisdom to my life. Make it your goal today to take at least 1 thing away from this post and try to live your life more focused from now on.
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