The nursing profeesion requires one to have the spirit of teamwork together with effective communication and collaboration in order to provide quality care for patients.A nurse serves as a central position that connects doctors, patients, as well as administrative staff.
When teamwork amongst these is implemented successfully, several benefits arise as a result: Improved patient care, greater job satisfaction, stronger professional connections, and more efficient processes. Whether you’re a nursing leader or not, there are always ways to promote and enhance teamwork, such as those outlined below.
Transparency can be established by being direct and honest with your team and your patients. This ensures that everyone has access to the same information, standards, and expectations.
Transparency can be promoted by making detailed patient chart notes (for each patient) and regularly checking in with the nursing team to confirm various priorities and the status thereof. You can also ask for clarification and assistance when you feel uncertain or overwhelmed. By informing your team about your needs, it can expose you to new opportunities to learn and also help you to prevent burnout.
Many healthcare facilities might work with high volumes of patients. Following up about patient needs can improve accountability throughout the nursing team and enhance patient care.
Tracking patients’ progress and updating your colleagues after completing a task allows everyone to be aware of the same information that leads to treating patients in a more informative manner. This also helps to keep the team organized and can help everyone to meet objectives in a timely manner. Something of importance herein is to make notes about communications with patients and professionals- for example, who has been contacted, when the last follow-up has been completed, and how communication was achieved.
Practicing flexibility and adaptability can provide your team members with assistance when they need it. It can also allow for tailored care solutions for each patient and successfully navigate situations that may be unexpected.
You can enhance your adaptability by paying attention to your surroundings, offer support when you notice that someone needs help (including professionals), and use problem-solving skills to (re)organize tasks so that everyone can accomplish their priorities. Another way to promote adaptability is by observing how your team members accomplish tasks so that you can learn something new and make it easier to work together and support each other.
Collaboration amongst team members can also be improved upon by establishing clear roles and expectations of each person. This way, it is confirmed that everyone has a specific assigned task that they need to accomplish without accidentally overlapping responsibilities. It makes things easier when essential information needs to be accessed and allows for prioritized tasks to be quickly completed.
Developing nursing team member roles is easy- simply write down the description for each position in a document that can be easily accessed by others. Divide tasks fairly and evenly based on each person’s knowledge and experience, and update the document when changes arise. Completing a role clarification sheet for each role also comes in handy when someone new forms part of the team so that they can quickly learn about the team’s workflow and be aware of whom to contact should they require specific information or assistance.
Written and verbal communication can be used to develop a team dynamic where collaboration is promoted with other nursing and healthcare professionals. This can help improve teamwork as well as increase motivation levels among the nursing team.
Communication skills can be improved upon by completing training and drills to determine which key areas of communication skills need improvement. Based on the result thereof, new avenues of communication can be implemented that lead to greater collaboration within the team.
When a team actively works to improve teamwork in their environment, more efficient nursing practices can be established that lead to several benefits. While there are various other ways of promoting teamwork, the above are simple to implement and monitor for progress.
At Greenstaff Medical, we work as one and always strive to promote teamwork when nurses come to us in search of a new placement, as well as within our internal recruitment team. Should you be interested in one of our positions, be it shifts or internal recruitment, apply within or get in touch with us by visiting our contact page.