Inter-professional teamwork and its association with patient safety in German hospitals-A cross sectional study

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 15; no. 5; p. e0233766
• Main Authors: Dinius, Julia, Philipp, Rebecca, Ernstmann, Nicole, Heier, Lina, Göritz, Anja S, Pfisterer-Heise, Stefanie, Hammerschmidt, Judith, Bergelt, Corinna, Hammer, Antje, Körner, Mirjam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 29-05-2020; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Attitude of Health Personnel; Behavior; Biology and Life Sciences; Caregivers; Collaboration; Cooperative Behavior; Correlation analysis; Cross-Sectional Studies; Employment; Evaluation; Female; Germany; Health aspects; Health care teams; Health services; Hospitals; Humans; Job performance; Knowledge; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Medical care quality; Medicine and Health Sciences; Middle Aged; Nurses; Objectives; Occupational safety; Patient Care Team; Patient Safety; Patient satisfaction; Patients; People and Places; Physical Sciences; Physicians; Professionals; Psychosomatic medicine; Psychotherapy; Qualitative reasoning; Qualitative research; Quality management; Quality of care; Regression analysis; Research and Analysis Methods; Safety; Social Sciences; Sociology; Studies; Surveys and Questionnaires; Teams; Teamwork; Teamwork (Workplace); Variance analysis; Work experience; Work values; Germany
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0233766

Inter-professional teamwork is a prominent factor in quality of care and may lead to improved patient safety. Although team members' points of view are highly relevant when trying to improve inpatient procedures, there is a lack of systematic assessment of their perceptions. Therefore, study aims were to explore inter-professional teamwork, safety-related behavior, and patient safety in German hospitals from team members' point of view. Furthermore, we wanted to examine the association between inter-professional teamwork and safety-related behavior as well as the association between inter-professional teamwork and patient safety.
We used cross-sectional pre-intervention data of a multicenter longitudinal study (German KOMPAS project). We gathered descriptive statistics for sample characteristics and to describe the current state of inter-professional teamwork, safety-related behavior, and patient safety. We used one-way variance analyses to assess differences between groups, and linear regression analyses to examine the association between inter-professional teamwork and the outcomes safety-related behavior, and patient safety.
326 inpatient care team members participated in the study. Participants perceived a moderate to high level of inter-professional teamwork, and a moderate level of patient safety. Moreover, they reached rather high values in safety-related behavior. Professional group, work experience, and period of employment had an impact on the perceptions of inter-professional teamwork, and patient safety. Higher inter-professional teamwork was associated with better patient safety. We did not find an association between inter-professional teamwork and safety-related behavior.
Based on the association between inter-professional teamwork and patient safety, we recommend the implementation of team interventions. Because professional group, period of employment, and work experience had an impact on the perceptions of inter-professional teamwork and patient safety, we suggest future qualitative research to explore reasons for caregivers' critical evaluation. Moreover, we recommend longitudinal studies to reveal causal relationships, and subsequently to determine areas of improvement for a safer health care.