This document discusses the importance of teamwork in healthcare. It describes how the team approach emerged after WWII with increased specialization of roles. An effective team has complementary skills, a shared goal, and mutual accountability. Teams progress through stages from orientation to acceptance. Good communication is critical for team success by transferring understanding and addressing barriers like differing backgrounds. Dietitians are part of large, multidisciplinary healthcare teams along with physicians, nurses, and over 100 other allied health roles.

1. Chapter 3
Joining Together:
The Team Approach

2. The Team Approach
• Dietetics professionals must be multi-
skilled, cross-trained, and effective team
players.
• Increasing number of healthcare
professions requiring specialized
knowledge and skill.
• Allied health professionals.

3. The History of the
Healthcare Team Concept
• Concept emerged after World War II
• Increased sharing of responsibility with other
professionals that had formerly only been
under the physician and/or nurse
• Major impact on the quality, costs,
organization, and delivery of health care

4. What Makes a Group a Team?
• Group vs. Team
• Two important differences:
– A team produces specific results for which the
team is collectively responsible.
– A team possesses supra-consciousness of
being a team, an awareness of needing each
other.

5. Teamwork
• Close, cooperative effort of several people
to use their special skills to meet the
needs of the client/patient better than
would be possible by individual,
independent action.
• Educating and including the client/patient
is critical.

6. Teamwork
• Physician assumes the leadership role on
most healthcare teams.
• Team members must be able to
differentiate between shared and
individual roles.
• Delegated functioning vs. collaborative
functioning.

7. Fundamentals of
Team Dynamics
• Four important dimensions:
– Composed of a small number of people
– Complementary skills
– General consensus on why the team exists
– Mutual accountability for the work and results
of the team

8. Types of Teams
• Informal team:
– Team that exists to provide friendship
– No officially appointed leader
– Usually develops spontaneously and may
evolve into a formal team

9. Types of Teams
• Formal team:
– Created to achieve performance goals that
contribute to the success of the larger
organization.
– One person is usually granted formal
leadership responsibility.
– Each member of the team shares
responsibility for facilitating the team’s work.

10. Attraction to Teams, Roles,
and Norms
• Commitment to a team hinges on two factors:
– Attractiveness
– Cohesiveness
• Role: Socially determined prescription for
behavior in a specific position
• Norms: General standards of conduct that
help an individual judge what is right or wrong

11. Attraction to Teams, Roles,
and Norms
• In any team, formal or informal, norms
develop to:
– Ensure the survival of the team
– Simplify or clarify role expectations
– Help team members avoid embarrassing
situations and protect self-images
– Express key team values and enhance the
team’s unique identification

12. Team Development
• Groups do not become a team overnight.
• Six stages of team development:
1. Orientation
2. Conflict and change
3. Cohesion
4. Delusion
5. Disillusion
6. Acceptance

13. Communicating for
Team Success
• Communication: The constant development of
understanding among people
• Effective communication: Successful transfer
of information, meaning, and understanding from
a sender to a receiver
• Not necessary to have agreement, but there
must be mutual understanding

14. Types of Communication
• Oral communication
• Written communication
• Visual aids
• Gestures
• Actions

15. Barriers to Good
Communication
• Barriers include the language used, differing
backgrounds, and the circumstance in which
the communication takes place.
• The receiver may infer what is expected even
when it is not communicated.
• Different people attach various meanings to
certain words.

16. Barriers to Good
Communication
• A receiver who is emotionally upset often
stops listening in order to think about what
he or she will say next.
• A network breakdown occurs when there
is a disruption or closure of a
communication channel.

17. Improving Communication
• Listen to the reply, which may entail words,
facial expressions, body language, and even
silence.
• Empathy is crucial to mutual understanding.
• Reinforce words with congruent actions.
• Foster an environment of openness and trust
through self-disclosure.

18. Productive Communication
• Teamwork requires communication that
supports and encourages authentic, inclusive
sharing and negotiation of ideas and
perspectives.
• Different types of communication:
– Assertive communication
– Responsible communication
– Confirming communication
– Appropriate communication

19. What Makes a Work
Team Effective?
• Three categories of determinants in team
effectiveness:
1. People-related factors
2. Organization-related factors
3. Task-related factors

20. What Makes a Work
Team Effective?
• Trust is a people-related factor.
• Ways to build trust include:
– Communication
– Support
– Respect
– Fairness
– Predictability
– Competence

21. Members of Healthcare Teams
• There are more than 100 possible members of
the healthcare team!
• Dietitians:
– Dietitians in business
– Clinical dietitians
– Community dietitians
– Consultant dietitians
– Dietitians in education
– Management dietitians
– Research dietitians

22. Members of Healthcare Teams
• Dietetic Technicians, Registered (DTR)
– Work in a variety of settings and assume an
even wider variety of responsibilities than RDs
• Certified Dietary Manager, Certified Food
Protection Professional (CDM, CFPP)
– Members of the Association of Nutrition &
Foodservice Professionals (ANFP)
– Dietary managers trained predominately for
foodservice management, but also assist with
nutrition care

23. Other Members of the
Healthcare Team
• Physicians
• Nurses
• Pharmacists
• Social workers
• Chiropractors
• Physical therapists
• Athletic trainers

24. Other Members of the
Healthcare Team
• Occupational therapists
• Speech-language pathologists
• Medical laboratory technicians/technologists
• Radiologic technologists
• Nuclear medicine technologists
• Respiratory therapists
• Medical assistants
• Medical records administrators