Inter-professional teamwork is gaining ground in most economic sectors to bring together unique skills to achieve efficiency. In healthcare, inter-professional teams are applied to offer the different perspectives on health care towards quality healthcare. However, there exist barriers within fields and personalities that may hinder collaboration and communication among various teams (Keller et al., 2013). Therefore there is a need for groups to establish ground rules to ensure they remain within the objectives of the formation of the team. An exploration of the methods applied to determine ground rules, strategies for resolving conflicts, leadership management, and communication strategies shed light on the concept of best practice in interprofessional teams.
Methods to Establish Ground Rules and Set Expectations for Inter-Professional
Teams employ different methods to establish ground rules and set expectations. One of the methods for setting ground rules is a group discussion. In a group discussion, team associate gets together, suggest ground rules and discuss which law will apply in their collaboration. A VLE system enables group discussion by first having associates select individual preferred ground rules that are then considered in the group (Whatley, 2009). Group discussion is applicable in areas such as self-scheduling where employees are allowed to chose their preferable schedules. In such cases, the employees can participate in a group discussion to fit well into the schedule. In the group discussions employees can negotiate for timings that suit them best. Teammates then come to a consensus on the ground rules and expectations that pertain to scheduling.
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On the other hand, the ground rules can be established through reference to pre-determined company rules for projects. Every organization has set of rules that govern their employees, and such laws can become the guiding principles of teamwork. Some organizations also provide rules for guiding cooperation within the organization. The use of pre-set ground rules is applicable when there is little time available for the project to commence that does not allow for meetings or in situations where teams are in different localities, and encounters are technical for group discussion. Preset rules also apply in cases where organizations frequently utilize inter-professional teams and hence develop regulations to govern all team projects.
Conflict Resolution Strategies and Applicable Scenarios
It is expected that conflict will arise in inter-professional teas due to the difference in levels of expertise, different approach to task for various personalities, differing perspectives, and personal preferences. Disputes in teamwork arise from personal or team differences hence team strategies and individual strategies for conflict resolution. Team strategies include interventions by leaders and formulation of conflict resolution protocols. Interventions by leaders include groups bringing in senior personnel to resolve their issue. Leaders' intervention is applicable in conflicts that involve boundary in roles and obligations or barriers to conflict resolution such as workloads and dominance issues. The use of conflict resolution protocols consists in applying set guidelines for resolving issues within an organization. The strategy addresses most basic conflicts that are bound to arise in a work environment such as lateness and ethics of practice among others.
Individual strategies deal with conflicts that arise because of personal differences such as emotions, personalities, and personal crisis. Such issues require the person to address or be addressed individually to solve the conflict. Some individual conflict resolution strategies include communication, respect, and humility among others. Communication is employed in a conflicts resolution openly and directly to address the issue. For instance, lateness has to be discussed openly and straight to the individual to cut the behavior and remind them of the consequences. Respect is about acknowledging and finding value in the input of others to avoid emotional distress or aggressive responses. Team associate should embrace respectful criticism or disagreement in collaborative settings. Humility addresses issues arising from pride from more experienced colleagues or more influential group members. Humility can be applied by teammates who have the higher expertise or who hold leadership position higher in the hierarchy in trying to listen and reason with other colleagues below their levels without undermining them (Brown et al., (2011).
Addressing Issues of Leadership, Risks with Lack of Leadership and Power Struggles in Teams
Leadership is vital to the attainment of the set objectives and ensuring everyone plays t6heir role in groups. Without guidance, an organization runs the risk of power battles, aggressive dominance, and unaccountability among others. Leadership issues can be addressed through a collaborative approach in leading, shared leadership and distributed leadership. Collaborative methods include working with employees to avoid instructional leadership. Collaboration also ensures that employees are free to communicate their issues and address any they have against the administration. The collaborative approach works well for most matters relating to leadership. It also enables leaders to respectful state role of each to ensure accountability. Shared and distributed leadership involve a clear statement of leadership boundaries to prevent power battles by clearly stating leadership jurisdictions (Al-Sawai, 2013). Power struggles do not exist in certain circumstances such as when there are clear definitions of roles and responsibilities for all employees. Also, the Clear outline of hierarchies in leadership in a project is necessary to avoid power struggles as well as Humility and respect for one another in a team.
Best Practices for Inter-Professional Team Collaboration
Inter-professional education recommends four aspects for best practice in inter-professional teams which include administrative support, programmatic infrastructure, committed faculty and recognition of participation. Administrative support enables best practice through organizations allowing for necessary changes in the schedules to allow for inter-professional roles. Programmatic infrastructure refers to the availability of required resources needed in carrying out interprofessional projects. The faculties within and healthcare organization need to be committed to interprofessional tasks through an availing representative to take part in the team tasks and supporting the representatives. Best practice in health care also requires that team members are acknowledged for their efforts and achievements in interprofessional undertakings through awards, certificates, and grading (Bridge et al., 2011). Communication tools such as SBAR and STEPPS would be helpful in ensuring best practice. SBAR techniques represent Situation-Background-Assessment-recommendation model in handling conversations especially critical ones. The SBAR helps to enable prompt and appropriate communication within healthcare practice. STEPPS is a Systems Training for Emotional Predictability and Problem Solving approach to communication with patients to allow the better understand their conditions and deal with them appropriately.
Benefits and Limitations of Different Forms of Communication and Risks Associated With Ineffective Communication
Different forms of communication are used in inter-team projects, and they hold various advantages and disadvantages. Some of the forms of communication used in projects include email, texts, blogs, EMAR, face to face and WebEx. Each of the forms holds its advantages and disadvantages. Emails hold advantages such as fast deliveries, cheap and accessible at any time as well as they enable multi-communication by allowing sending of one email to any people. Disadvantages of emails include the risk of transfer of viruses between computers, the need for internet connection to access emails and lack of prompt unless the user logs into their email. The advantages of texting include high open rate, discretion in that texting does not cause a disturbance in meetings, easy to use and does not require internet connectivity. However, texting is only applicable to narrow simple communications and not complex information due to word limits. All forms of written communications offer written proof for future reference in case of conflicts (BBC). Face to face communications are beneficial in that they have immediate responses and clarifications of communications, they allow coordination, collaboration, and learning and allow for showing feelings and nonverbal cues which reinforce the intention of the conversation. Face to face communications is however difficult to practice for large teams and require presence and attentiveness which are subject to unavailability and distraction respectively.
References
Al-Sawai, A. (2013). The leadership of healthcare professionals: Where do we stand? Oman Medical Journal, 28 (4), 285–287. doi: http://doi.org/10.5001/omj.2013.79.
BBC. (2014). Advantages and disadvantages of emails and alternative forms of communication . Retrieved on 20 April 2018, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/ict/datacomm/1emailrev3.shtml.
Bridges, D. R., Davidson, R. A., Odegard, P. S., Maki, I. V., & Tomkowiak, J. (2011). Inter-professional collaboration: three best practice models of inter-professional education. Medical Education Online, 16 . doi: 10.3402/meo.v16i0.6035. http://doi.org/10.3402/meo.v16i0.6035.
Brown, J., Lewis, L., Ellis, K., Stewart, M., Freeman, T. R., & Kasperski, M. J. (2011). Conflict on inter-professional primary health care teams–can it be resolved? Journal of Inter-professional Care, 25 (1), 4-10. doi: 10.3109/13561820.2010.497750.
Keller, K. et al. (2013). Implementing successful inter-professional communication opportunities in health care education: A qualitative analysis." International Journal of Medical Education 4 (2013), 253–259. doi: doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.5116%2Fijme.5290.bca6.
Whatley,J. E (2009). Ground rules in team projects: Findings from a prototype system to support students. Journal of Information Technology Education, 8 , 161-176.
