Juliane E. Kämmer
Margarete Boos
Julia C. Seelandt- 1Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- 2Institute for Psychology, Georg August University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
- 3Simulation Center, University Hospital Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland
Editorial on the Research Topic
Promoting teamwork in healthcare
1 Introduction
Delivering healthcare is inherently collaborative, involving diverse teams across various stages of patient care, from ad-hoc emergency and anesthesia teams delivering immediate care to surgeries and tumor boards conferring on long-term cancer treatment (Lamb et al., 2011; Tschan et al., 2015; Choi et al., 2023). Thereby, quality of patient care hinges on the successful intra- and interprofessional collaboration among healthcare professionals, and sensitive interaction with patients and their families (World Health Organization, 2010; Committee on Diagnostic Error in Health Care et al., 2015; Graber et al., 2017). In particular, communication and coordination in healthcare teams are pivotal for team performance and patient safety (Tucker and Edmondson, 2003; Lingard, 2004; Salas et al., 2008; Manser, 2009; Künzle et al., 2010; Fernandez Castelao et al., 2013; Kolbe and Grande, 2013; Tschan et al., 2014). However, achieving effective teamwork is challenging, especially in large hospitals where turnover rates are high, and for interdisciplinary and interprofessional ad-hoc teams lacking ongoing collaboration experience (Pearce et al., 2006; Nemeth, 2008; St. Pierre et al., 2011; Fortune et al., 2012). Moreover, healthcare teams face intricate tasks, requiring rapid decision making amidst uncertainty and adaptability to evolving conditions (King et al., 2008; Nemeth, 2008; Fortune et al., 2012). Fostering research into promoting effective teamwork in healthcare stands to significantly enhance patient care quality.
To promote effective teamwork in healthcare, a number of important knowledge and practice gaps need to be closed. The 23 articles in this Research Topic contribute to advancing our understanding of determinants and mechanisms of effective teamwork in healthcare, identifying useful methods for studying teams, and enlarging our repertoire of best practices for promoting and training teamwork in healthcare (see Tables 1, 2). These articles are authored by researchers from countries including Germany, Israel, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, China, and the USA.
Table 1. Overview of articles reporting primarily empirical studies.
Table 2. Overview of articles reporting method and concept developments.
2 Overview on the articles in this Research Topic
One way of grouping the articles relates to the well-known and widespread input-process-outcome model of teamwork (Ilgen et al., 2005; Hackman, 2012), another is to group them along the methodical dimension. Providing a brief overview of variables and topics covered, Table 1 comprises our categorization based on these two taxonomies for the 13 articles that report primary empirical studies. Input variables considered in the studies range from member and team characteristics, diverse professional knowledge, skills and stereotypes, and task-based cognitive and emotional demands, to the experimental induction of communication training, simulation and E-learning. The articles focus on multiple process variables including e.g., learning activities, coordinative behavior, interaction with human and AI agents, speaking up behavior, and coping with stress. Output variables considered include e.g., team effectiveness and team skills, psychological safety, patient safety, as well as team wellbeing. The Research Topic comprises articles based on various kinds of data, ranging from questionnaire and interview data to observational data, and performance measures. Besides medical students, a large range of healthcare professionals participated in the studies, individually and as teams.
Table 2 contains the 10 contributions that focus on new methods and concepts. Topics range from presenting new measures for assessing interprofessional teamwork, to proposing conceptual frameworks aimed at improving interprofessional collaboration and education in healthcare, and advocating for diverse perspectives in researching healthcare team dynamics.
3 Discussion
As we move forward, three crucial next steps emerge, each essential for advancing our understanding and practice in this critical area.
Firstly, given the rapidly evolving nature of the healthcare domain, encompassing technological advancements, clinical research, and evolving work environments, research continually faces emerging research questions. To tackle these, leveraging insights from existing research in tandem with innovative methodologies is particularly promising. For example, the utilization of advanced technologies such as eye tracking, as delineated by Weiss K. E. et al., in the examination of human-AI teams (Bienefeld et al.), presents a novel approach to understanding attention dynamics within these teams. Additionally, integrating biophysiological process measures (Wespi et al.) with traditional observer ratings (e.g., Morian et al.) and self-reports (e.g., Kämmer et al., Schulz and Wirtz) offers potential for enriching our understanding of the multifaceted nature of teamwork across various levels. Furthermore, exploring alternative viewpoints such as the temporal or conflict-power-status perspectives, as advocated by Seelandt et al., is likely to yield valuable new insights.
Secondly, research and curriculum development must prioritize the provision of practically relevant insights and methods to prepare practitioners for one of the biggest challenges in healthcare: interprofessional collaboration. The Team FIRST framework identifies 10 essential teamwork competencies for healthcare providers (Greilich et al., 2023) that could guide further research in real-world settings. Another approach toward this goal involves tailoring research designs and samples to reflect the interprofessional reality, for instance by involving diverse members of surgical teams with different backgrounds (e.g., Timm-Holzer et al.). Additionally, conducting more field and observational studies, as demonstrated by Schilling et al.'s field study during the COVID-19 pandemic or Soukup et al.'s investigation of real-life cancer multidisciplinary team meetings, proves essential. It is also imperative to validate findings from the laboratory in practical settings, exploring the boundary conditions of existing findings and methodologies in diverse environments and adopting a condition-focused approach (Hackman, 2012). For instance, Fernández Castillo et al. emphasized that more communication may not invariably lead to improved outcomes; instead, contextual factors influence the value of communication, which need to be scrutinized in further research.
Lastly, ensuring the accessibility of research findings and knowledge for interprofessional education is essential for preparing the next generation of healthcare professionals. While this Research Topic showcases innovative developments in interprofessional education (e.g., Körner et al., Kolbe et al., Witti et al.), the focus should now shift toward increasing the accessibility of educational materials and resources. This could range from publishing open-access materials alongside research articles, as done by Körner et al., to establishing platforms dedicated to sharing interprofessional training materials and curricula (e.g., https://www.did-act.eu, https://did-act.instruct.eu/course/view.php?id=3), such as virtual patient case collections (e.g., https://icovip.eu/) and the initiative Behavioral Science Applied to Healthcare (BSAH; Keller et al., 2024). By making such resources readily available, we can empower healthcare professionals with the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively collaborate across disciplines, ultimately enhancing teamwork and patient outcomes.
By embracing these challenges and opportunities, we can further enhance our understanding and practice of effective collaboration in healthcare settings, ultimately leading to improved patient care quality and outcomes.
Author contributions
JK: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. MB: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. JS: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Paul J. Pritz for language editing and Inga Hege for her input concerning open material resources. The authors would also like to thank all the dedicated reviewers whose valuable feedback and expertise were indispensable in ensuring the success of this Research Topic.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher's note
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Keywords: teamwork, healthcare (MeSH), interprofessional collaboration, Interprofessional education (IPE), patient safety, team performance analysis, Interprofessional communication
Citation: Kämmer JE, Boos M and Seelandt JC (2024) Editorial: Promoting teamwork in healthcare. Front. Psychol. 15:1422543. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1422543
Received: 24 April 2024; Accepted: 28 May 2024;
Published: 14 June 2024.
Edited and reviewed by: Darren C. Treadway, Niagara University, United States
Copyright © 2024 Kämmer, Boos and Seelandt. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Juliane E. Kämmer, juliane.kaemmer@unibe.ch
†ORCID: Juliane E. Kämmer orcid.org/0000-0001-6042-8453
Margarete Boos orcid.org/0000-0003-2122-8883
Julia C. Seelandt orcid.org/0000-0002-9476-7194