Teamwork in healthcare: a systematic review

Healthcare and human services increasingly rely on teams of individuals to deliver services. Implementation of evidence-based practices and other innovations in these settings requires teams to work together to change processes and behaviors. Accordingly, team functioning may be a key determinant of implementation outcomes. Understanding how team functioning influences implementation outcomes will contribute to our understanding of team-level barriers and facilitators of change.

This article is a systematic review examining associations between team functioning and implementation outcomes in healthcare and human service settings.

Affective, behavioral, and cognitive aspects of team functioning are likely to affect the ways in which teams respond to change efforts and therefore impact implementation outcomes. Better team functioning (e.g., high cohesion, effective communication) will be associated with better implementation outcomes, while problems in team functioning (e.g., poor conflict resolution, low trust) will negatively impact implementation outcomes.

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McGuier, E.A., Kolko, D.J., Klem, M.L. et al. Team functioning and implementation of innovations in healthcare and human service settings: a systematic review protocol. Syst Rev 10, 189 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-021-01747-w

Additional paper 

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McGuier EA, Kolko DJ, Stadnick NA, Brookman-Frazee L, Wolk CB, Yuan CT, Burke CS, Aarons GA. Advancing research on teams and team effectiveness in implementation science: An application of the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainment (EPIS) framework. Implement Res Pract. 2023 Jul 27;4:26334895231190855. doi: 10.1177/26334895231190855. PMID: 37790168; PMCID: PMC10387676.

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