TEAM WORK

Inter-Professional Team Working

Inter-Professional Team Working

Introduction

In today's dynamically changing environment, it is extremely for any individual to survive within the corporate world on his/her own. Moreover, a singular person could not nearly be as productive as a team could be with a collection of diverse minds and personalities working effortlessly towards the attainment of a singular goal (Burgess & Bates, 2009, p. 62).

However, a group of people working together could not simply be referred to as a team until and unless they develop a native understanding between them. In order to better understand about how teams actually work, what are the requirements of an effective team and their operations within health and social care settings, an in depth discussion regarding the relevant factors is required.

Discussion

A Team in Actuality

In the organizations of today, teamwork and team are the central points in any operations. There is often an activity where people belonging to diverse and distinct health professions are brought together and they assume the status of working within a team.

The simplest definition of a team could be a number of people with different skills approaching towards performance goals and a common purpose for which all the team members are accountable mutually. However, an effective team requires a certain period of time to be correctly nurtured and developed (Memorial University, 2000, p. 1).

Inter-Professional Team

American Medical Association (2013) highlights that an inter-professional team is one where healthcare services are provided by a team led physician with a minimum of two professionals belonging to the healthcare industry working with each other and the patient for the provision of high quality, coordinated care to the patient.

Issues Impacting Effective Team Working and Service User Involvement

Every team faces certain problems and issues regarding their operations, but it is indeed necessary that all those issues be overcome to give rise to a dawn of success for both the team and the organization. The most commonly known issues which affect the effectiveness of a team's performance include:

Organizational Barriers

In every Organization, there are certain events and political actions by colleagues which usually stop the team from working effectively. The majorly known issues on the Organizational level highlighted by Memorial University (2000) include:

Resilience towards appreciation and knowledge of other health professionals' roles.

Regulatory and Financial Barriers

Educational and Administrative Structures which discourage collaboration on the inter-professional level (pp. 1-2).

Barriers at Team Level

Issues are not only faced by teams on the macro or organizational level, but inside the team there are certain factors as well which consistently work to make the team inefficient and cause failures. The most prominent among those barriers and issues include:

Quarrels relative to a team member's relation to the client/patient

Lack of enthusiasm or concern for other team members

Lack of orientation relative to team work and team culture to new members

Ambiguity relative to team leadership and team member roles

Incomplete composition of the team with inappropriate professionals

Fall in commitment level of members of the team

Differentiation in the level of income, expertise, power and authority within team leading to conflicts

Missing proportion of measurable, ...