Pointers to Effective Teamwork: Exploring Primary Care

Abstract

Teamwork in primary care has been widely promoted for at least two decades. This paper identifies a lack of empirical evidence for the effectiveness of teamwork in primary care. It describes a study which drew on the opinions of a range of people involved in promoting teamwork in primary care, using a Delphi survey, to produce a ranked list of 20 possible indicators of team effectiveness, and suggestions for their practical measurement. Six key issues in developing such indicators are described and discussed. The significance of these findings for nursing is outlined.

Key Words:

• Effectiveness
• indicators
• primary care
• teamwork