Effective qualities of nursing interprofessional team members in healthcare

NURSING

INTERPROFESSIONAL TEAMS AND TEAM-BASED DELIVERY OF HEALTH CARE

Specific qualities are possessed by the most effective team members. I possess many of those qualities but need improvement in one area in particular. Certainly, my nursing training and professionalism contribute considerably to the team, despite my shortcomings. In fact, our team possesses many desirable qualities and works reasonably well, though the team needs improvement in some areas, particularly regarding one of our team members.

Assess the team qualities you have mastered thus far in your career and those you feel need further development.

According to Mitchell et al., the qualities possessed by the most effective team members are: honesty; discipline; creativity; humility and curiosity (Mitchell, et al., 2012, p. 5). I am an honest team member who highly values competent communication among my team members, including transparency about goals, choices, ambiguity, and errors, particularly because honesty is vital for mutual trust and ongoing development. I am also a disciplined team member who strives to consistently perform my functions and accountabilities with self-control but also consistently seeks and shares fresh knowledge to enhance the work of each member and of my entire team, in order to help my team cultivate and preserve high standards and procedures while assertively improving. Calling myself humble is somewhat awkward but I am a humble team member in that I recognize and appreciate training variances, knowing that humans make mistakes, and fostering team members' reliance on each other, regardless of our pecking order in the hierarchy. I am also a curious team member in that I continuously reflect on daily lessons and try to use that knowledge to constantly improve my and my team's performance. My greatest lack is in the area of creativity: while I try to address problems resourcefully, it is still difficult for me to feel energized about addressing them and to automatically deem mistakes and bad outcomes as learning opportunities. I do eventually arrive at using those errors and mistakes as learning opportunities but that is not my immediate reaction to them.

2. Evaluate your health care team

a. Discuss the health professionals that make up the team and their roles

My health team is composed of a registered nurse, a physician, a licensed practical nurse, and a clerical assistant, much like the Veteran's Administration's PACT (Mitchell, et al., 2012, p. 7). Each patient is, of course, also a member of the team dedicated to his/her care. My role as registered nurse is primarily as a care manager who ensures that policies and procedures are followed, even as I perform the normal duties of a registered nurse: administering medication, monitoring patient recovery and progress, and educating patients/families on preventive care and post-discharge treatment. The physician is the team leader, who makes rounds, diagnoses and prescribes medical care. The licensed practical nurse performs a variety of tasks under my supervision, such as administering medications and injections and taking vital signs. Finally, the clerical assistant acts as an administrative assistant of sorts, performing many clerical tasks to free up the other team members so they can perform their specialties.

b. How well the team functions

Our team performs reasonably well, though the clerical assistant, licensed practical nurse and I are clearly more "on board" with the team concept than is the physician. While he has some strong aspects of honesty, discipline, curiosity and creativity, humility is certainly not his forte and he does not appear to readily share fresh knowledge or to deem us equally valuable team members. That, of course, harms the team. The rest of us compensate (or perhaps overcompensate) for that lack and harm.

C. Conclusion

The qualities possessed by the most effective team members are: honesty; discipline; creativity; humility and curiosity. While possessing honesty, discipline, humility and curiosity, my greatest lack is in the area of creativity, in that it is difficult for me to feel energized by thinking of errors and bad outcomes as learning opportunities. My healthcare team is composed of a registered nurse, a physician, a licensed practical nurse, and a clerical assistant, all of whom perform tasks and accountabilities for the team according to their gifts. Our team performs reasonably well, though the physician is less accepting of the team concept. Nursing brings important contributions, not only by applying our medical training, but also by: fostering a comfortable and efficient working environment; respectfully listening and learning; handling conflict well; decision-making by consensus and in general agreement while listening to dissenting voices; readily accepting constructive criticism; being eternal students; and readily accepting assignments and new knowledge to continually improve care. Based on the readings, my team has many attributes of team-based care but with room for improvement in most of those areas. We have shared goals, though we could benefit from greater support by the physician member. We have clear roles. We have some measure of mutual trust, but would benefit from greater trust, reciprocity and shared achievement from our physician member. We effectively communicate our priorities, though we could benefit from more candid communication from the physician member with all other members. Finally, we timely and reliably measure processes and outcomes, though the team would benefit from greater dedication to that aspect by our physician team member.