How effective is teamwork really? The relationship between teamwork and performance in healthcare teams: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Effective teamwork is a critical component of care coordination and patient safety. This systematic review assessed the relationship between teamwork processes and clinical and process outcome measures in an acute care setting. Outcome measures included both clinical outcomes, such as postoperative infection rates, and process measures, such as adherence to checklists intended to prevent patient harm. The authors found that teamwork was positively correlated with both outcome and process measures, regardless of the characteristics of the team or task.