Improving healthcare team harmony through collaborative team reflection and mindfulness

Abstract

AbstractHospital wards, staffed by the multidisciplinary team, are complex environments where teamwork, communication and psychological safety is essential for coordinated care delivery, yet are faced with challenges such as staffing changes and complex care needs. However, there is little literature on interventions to assist staff connect as a team. We evaluated a brief daily group based on team reflection and mindfulness aimed at a multidisciplinary general medicine team, using measures of team functioning (effectiveness, communication, and psychological safety).We found that participants reported significant improvement in the meeting’s effectiveness (U=184, p=0.013), team morale (U=123, p<0.001), and focus (U=183, p<0.001) after the program’s commencement. Furthermore, participants who attended the program for at least a week reported they felt more psychologically safe (U=116, p=0.032). We also found significant positive correlation between measures of team functioning and the number of sessions they attended the program (effectiveness of the interdisciplinary meeting r=0.509, p<0.001; team’s communication and functioning (r=0.509, p<0.001). The post-intervention focus group highlighted the program helped build relationships within the team, improve psychological safety, and subsequently shifted the team’s behaviour to be more supportive of the overall team. Our program improved the functioning of a multidisciplinary healthcare team, with the overall aim to deliver better patient care.