A Systems Thinking Understanding of Teamwork Competencies and Their Relationship to Health System Outcomes

Systems thinking and teaming are two domains in health systems science. Health systems science is an emerging third science of health care education and has been recently adopted by the American Medical Association to prepare individuals for the challenges of twenty-first-century medicine. Given the complexity of health systems, a better understanding of systems thinking allows learners to see the “big picture” and how the parts in a system are related to the whole system. Teaming is a domain that teaches skills required for groups of interdependent individuals to achieve high reliability in the health care they provide. There is an opportunity to use systems thinking to better understand the relationships of teamwork competencies to health system outcomes. Team training is an effective means for increasing communication. The authors present a causal model that graphically illustrates relationships between teamwork competencies as well as relationships to other important health system factors such as preventable medical errors, and clinician and organizational outcomes. This model enables a holistic understanding of teamwork competencies and its expected effects.