Factors influencing teamwork and collaboration within a tertiary medical center

摘要

AIM: To understand how work climate and related factors influence teamwork and collaboration in a large medical center. METHODS: A survey of 3462 employees was conducted to generate responses to Sexton's Safety Attitudes Questionnaire(SAQ) to assess perceptions of work environment via a series of five-point, Likert-scaled questions. Path analysis was performed, using teamwork(TW) and collaboration(CO) as endogenous variables. The exogenous variables are effective communication(EC), safety culture(SC), job satisfaction(JS), work pressure(PR), and work climate(WC). The measure-ment instruments for the variables or summated subscales are presented. Reliability of each sub-scale are calculated. Alpha Cronbach coefficients are relatively strong: TW(0.81), CO(0.76), EC(0.70), SC(0.83), JS(0.91), WP(0.85), and WC(0.78). Confirmatory factor analysis was performed for each of these constructs. RESULTS: Path analysis enables to identify statistically significant predictors of two endogenous variables, teamwork and intra-organizational collaboration. Significant amounts of variance in perceived teamwork(R2 = 0.59) and in collaboration(R2 = 0.75) are accounted for by the predictor variables. In the initial model, safety culture is the most important predictor of perceived teamwork, with a β weight of 0.51, and work climate is the most significant predictor of collaboration, with a β weight of 0.84. After eliminating statistically insignificant causal paths and allowing correlated predictors1, the revised model shows that work climate is the only predictor positively influencing both teamwork(β = 0.26) and collaboration(β = 0.88). A relatively weak positive(β = 0.14) but statistically significant relationship exists between teamwork and collaboration when the effects of other predictors are simultaneously controlled.CONCLUSION: Hospital executives who are interested in improving collaboration should assess the work climate to ensure that employees are operating in a setting conducive to intra-organizational collaboration.