Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore possible factors impacting team performance in healthcare, by focusing on information exchange within and across hospital’s boundaries.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a web-survey and group interviews, the authors collected data on the communication networks of 31 members of four interdisciplinary healthcare teams involved in a system redesign initiative within a large US children’s hospital. The authors mapped their internal and external social networks based on management advice, technical support and knowledge dissemination within and across departments, studying interaction patterns that involved more than 700 actors. The authors then compared team performance and social network metrics such as degree, closeness and betweenness centrality, and computed cross ties and constraint levels for each team.
Findings
The results indicate that highly effective teams were more inwardly focused and less connected to outside members. Moreover, highly recognized teams communicated frequently but, overall, less intensely than the others.
Originality/value
Mapping knowledge flows and balancing internal focus and outward connectivity of interdisciplinary teams may help healthcare decision makers in their attempt to achieve high value for patients, families and employees.
Attrition in longitudinal studies of survivors of childhood cancer reduces these studies' statistical power, introduces bias and threatens internal and external validity. This study investigated the variables associated with dropout of survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in a trial investigating the effect of vitamin D and calcium supplementation and nutritional counseling on bone mineral density (BMD). Twenty-five participants withdrew from the study. Common reasons given for withdrawing were intolerance of the study drug, family hardship and schedule conflicts. Few statistically and clinically significant differences identified participants who completed the study. Nurses need to be aware of the reasons that participants withdraw from clinical trials, as they are in a strategic position to encourage patients to participate in health promotion studies.
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