Comments on: Creating Your “A Team” for Health http://blog.patientslikeme.com/2012/10/03/creating-your-%e2%80%9ca-team%e2%80%9d-for-health/ PatientsLikeMe - Patients helping patients live better every day Tue, 14 May 2013 14:27:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Sally Okun http://blog.patientslikeme.com/2012/10/03/creating-your-%e2%80%9ca-team%e2%80%9d-for-health/comment-page-1/#comment-160127 Sally Okun Mon, 08 Oct 2012 17:05:35 +0000 http://blog.patientslikeme.com/?p=7522#comment-160127 Dear Kiara,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments and insightful observations. I will be sure to share then with my fellow authors on the Institute of Medicine discussion paper.

It is so encouraging to hear from someone early in their medical career. Your perspective will serve you, your colleagues and your patients well as you go forth and foster meaningful relationships together. Best wishes to you.

Sally

]]> By: Kiara http://blog.patientslikeme.com/2012/10/03/creating-your-%e2%80%9ca-team%e2%80%9d-for-health/comment-page-1/#comment-159205 Kiara Wed, 03 Oct 2012 19:44:11 +0000 http://blog.patientslikeme.com/?p=7522#comment-159205 Sally, as a premedical student I have learned that team-based care is on the rise and for good reason. I agree with you on the basis that team-based care can help a patient’s care or hinder it. As you touched on, it is important to realize that if any of your 5 components of an effective team are missing, the patient’s care could seriously falter.

If the health care team fails at communicating their individual goals with each other as well as the patient, discrepancies in the methods carried out by each individual health care provider may occur. At the extreme, this could cause patient fatality. On a less severe note, the patient could express dissatisfaction at the obvious disorganization and lack of communication between persons. This is similar when discussing the need for clear roles for each member of a team. Team-based care poses the risk that one or more persons may falter when it comes to performing their specified duty, causing a burden on the other members of the team instead of helping.

You mentioned mutual trust between team members; it is also important that the patient trusts the team as a whole. If the patient senses a mistrust within the team it is likely that the patient will become uneasy about how the quality of his/her care. Not trusting each other cause the patient to distrust the team as a whole.

Modes of communication MUST depend on each patient individually. It is important for the team to be aware that each patient has individual preferences. A multitude of people trying to contact a patient raises the risk of discrepencies in information relayed to the patient. This is where clear communication comes into play once again.

Although working in a team as opposed to one single provider can help eliminate error in method or aid in making better decisions, working with multiple people carries the risk of discrepancies, patient confusion, and slower progress (it may cause a sort of bureaucracy). However, I do believe that if members in a team work to excel at the five characteristics in your guidelines, team-based healthcare could contribute to enhancing the quality of health care.

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