Team-based Health Care

00:00 The next kind of relationship we're going to talk about in healthcare is the healthcare team relationship.

00:06 So, the relationships that team members have with each other.

00:11 So let's first of all define what a team is.

00:14 So it's a group of interdependent individuals who interact and/or work together towards a common goal for completion of a common task.

00:22 So basically saying okay get a group of people together, they'd agreed to work together and they're going to, you know, have a common task to accomplish.

00:31 When you apply that to healthcare, so this is intentionally created, it's usually relatively small group, and they are recognized by others as well as by themselves as having a collective identity.

00:44 So they recognized themselves as a team, and if they have this shared responsibility for a particular patient or for a group of patients.

00:56 So, if you recall back from our opening ethics lecture about what medical ethics is, it started with this idea that there's an internal morality to medicine that at the heart of the clinical encounter is the vulnerable patient dealing with an illness, the desire of the clinician to help them through that illness, and a promise by the clinician that they will be there to serve the best interest of the patient.

01:24 So at the core is going to be patient well-being.

01:27 That's what we're all striving for and that's going to be accomplished through the clinician-patient relationship.

01:33 So, that relationship that we have talked about in another lecture really says "We're here for you, we're going to get you better, keep you healthy." Part of that relationship is also going to be the clinician and the idea that the clinician's well-being also matters.

01:51 So, the efforts that the clinician makes or that, you know, the team makes or that the organization makes to support the well-being of the clinician so that they can establish the relationship with the patient.

02:02 They can be there to help with the patient's well-being.

02:07 It also has to be recognized that that clinician is not just individual, but working often within a team.

02:14 So, there is going to be team member relationship.

02:17 So, working with other professionals, other disciplines, all in this common goal of patient well-being.

02:26 Teams also need to have well-being themselves.

02:29 So, what are the functioning and communication strategies that the team uses to make sure it can accomplish its work? So we think about the well-being of the team, which is then thinking about the larger organization and then the organization is in relationship with the community.

02:50 So it's not just an individual patient, but it's now the community of patients or the community of people that might need the services of either public health or medical care.

03:04 So, in the grander scheme in the larger scope, we're thinking also about community and population well-being.

03:13 There are going to be a number of factors that influence the functioning of each of these domains.

03:19 So on the personal level, there's going to be the personality of the individual, their behavior.

03:26 If it's a clinician, their skills, their abilities and serving that goal of either patient well-being or community well-being.

03:34 At the team level, as I said, it's important that there is communication, that all are committed to collaboration, that they have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities, and that they have a shared vision of the values and ethical principles by which they will work.

03:50 And then if you think about the organization, it's establishing rules, regulations, policies.

03:57 It's thinking about creation of an organizational culture.

04:00 Again, if the main goal is patient and community well-being, all of those policies, procedures, and the culture that is established is for that purpose.

04:12 It recognizes that the responsibilities of an institution go beyond just, you know, the patients that are in the institution but broader into society.

04:22 And if it's an academic institution where there are learners, you know, health professional learners, it's also how it creates a learning environment that is positive for everyone so that the learners get what they need to learn their craft, but that the patients also get the needs that they require in their healthcare.

04:41 And then, you know, also the other main influence for all of these is going to be the culture of the larger society.

04:49 So, where this institution is situated, the community that it practices in, all of that is going to be important when we think about the individual well-being as well as the community well-being.