• Chapter 7 concentrates on the need for continuity when patient care and other responsibilities are transferred from person to person and / or team to team .
1.02 Teams in healthcare
Teamwork has been the subject of increasing relevance to the world of healthcare over the past century . The caricature from the old movies of the authoritarian male doctor who expected his minions to follow his every bidding has its roots in the reality of the times . In that era this apparently lone-operator held his own personal records of every patient in a single notebook which he kept private . Fast forward to the current era and …
… a third of patients have at least ten specialist physicians actively involved in their care by the last year of life , and probably a score more personnel , ranging from nurse practitioners and physician assistants to pharmacists and home medical aides .
Atul Gwande
All are working with the intention of providing coordinated care . One significant shift in this respect is that the patient ’ s record should , in theory , be one document which is available to and updated by any clinician involved in their care . Theory and reality are often difficult to align .
There are many others involved in patient care : administrators , technicians , opticians and dieticians to name a few . In addition , pastoral care can be of high importance to some patients and takes many forms for the culturally diverse patient population . There are separate wards and departments ; separate buildings for hospitals , clinics and practices . There are people working in different health authorities and organisations . There are hierarchical teams within these specialties , disciplines and organisations . Then there are multidisciplinary teams . Some teams are formal and some informal . Some established with long-term intentions . Some are transient – lasting only as long as it takes to work together to manage an acute patient emergency .
In short , team interaction in healthcare is complex . And this complexity continues to
increase . In recent times in the UK , a concerted drive to fully integrate health and social
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