Two sides of the coin – General Practitioners' experience of working in multidisciplinary teams

Abstract

Multidisciplinary teamwork, defined as the collaboration between different professional groups to achieve a common purpose, is commonly regarded as a means to meet the complex tasks that medicine has to deal with today. However, many attempts to introduce the method in primary care have failed and this is supposed to be partly due to the fact that general practitioners (GPs) did not participate in the implementation of the method. The aim of this investigation was to get a deeper understanding of their attitude to teamwork by interviewing nine GPs at four Swedish health care centres, where successful teamwork had been ongoing since 1997. Themes and categories in the interviews were identified according to content analysis. Although the attitude in general was in favour of teamwork, four major themes: time-consuming versus time-saving; shared responsibility versus main responsibility; medical expert versus generalist; shared knowledge versus all knowing, could be identified, which all revealed ambivalence towards teamwork among the interviewees. It was concluded that, if teamwork is to be successfully introduced into primary care, the GPs' self-perception has to be taken into consideration as has the prestige and status associated with their traditional role and the benefits of teamwork to the profession of medicine. Apart from time, teamwork requires, professional supervision and doctors need to be trained in this method as early as in medical school.

Primary health care in New Zealand: the impact of organisational factors on teamwork

“…Consistent with studies elsewhere, 5,24,25 the barriers to collaborative primary care teamworking identified in this study are multiple. Barriers both in New Zealand and other developed countries can be political, organisational, educational, or cultural.…”

Who goes where? A prospective study of referral patterns within a newly established primary care team

“…It is likely that primary care teams would benefit from targeted exploration of the skills and services within each team and agreement between all the team members on appropriate patient care pathways within primary care. Failure of previous attempts to introduce multidisciplinary teams in primary care has been partly attributed to the fact that general practitioners did not participate in the implementation of the method [1]. In this study, a consultation with a female participant was twice as likely as a consultation with a male participant to produce a referral (Relative risk = 2.01, 95% Confidence interval = 1.63-2.47).…”

“…Multidisciplinary teamwork, defined as the collaboration between different professional groups to achieve a common purpose, is commonly regarded as a means to meet the complex tasks that medicine has to deal with today [1]. Primary care is the appropriate setting to meet 90-95% of all health and personal social service needs [2].…”

Concept of health team in ensuring universal health care delivery

“…4,7,10,11 To enhance the contribution of health teams in reducing the magnitude of a disease or improving the quality of life of people, it is of utmost importance to have the right 'mix' of health personnel with clear roles and sufficient freedom to exercise their skills. 2,12 Furthermore, implementation of other strategies has also been recommended (such as selecting a good leader 2 ; scientific and rationale decision to decide members of health team based on health concern 6,8 ; organizing training sessions for the members of the health team 1,7 ; ensuring effective interprofessional collaboration 13,14 ; facilitating regular interaction and feedback on performance 12 ; extending adequate infrastructure support 11,12 ; and encouraging research activities to promote better understanding among members of the team at different levels 14 ) in order to expand the benefits of the health team.…”