Teamwork as an essential component of high-reliability organizations

    Authors

    D. P. Baker; R. Day;E. Salas

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Health Serv. Res.

    Keywords

    high-reliability organization; teams; teamwork; health care; patient; safety; training; CRISIS RESOURCE-MANAGEMENT; PERFORMANCE; WORK; PROGRESS; TEAMS; Health Care Sciences & Services; Health Policy & Services

    Abstract

    Organizations are increasingly becoming dynamic and unstable. This evolution has given rise to greater reliance on teams and increased complexity in terms of team composition, skills required, and degree of risk involved. High-reliability organizations (HROs) are those that exist in such hazardous environments where the consequences of errors are high, but the occurrence of error is extremely low. In this article, we argue that teamwork is an essential component of achieving high reliability particularly in health care organizations. We describe the fundamental characteristics of teams, review strategies in team training, demonstrate the criticality of teamwork in HROs and finally, identify specific challenges the health care community must address to improve teamwork and enhance reliability.

    Journal Title

    Health Services Research

    Volume

    41

    Issue/Number

    4

    Publication Date

    1-1-2006

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    1576

    Last Page

    1598

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000246008800004

    ISSN

    0017-9124

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