Improving Patient Safety and Care Quality: A Multiteam System Perspective

Purpose Early writings about teamwork in healthcare emphasized that healthcare providers needed to evolve from a team of experts into an expert team. This is no longer enough. As patients, accreditation bodies, and regulators increasingly demand that care is coordinated, safe, of high quality, and efficient, it is clear that healthcare organizations increasingly must function and learn not only as expert teams but also as expert multiteam systems (MTSs). Approach In this chapter, we offer a portrait of the robust, and albeit complex, multiteam structures that many healthcare systems are developing in order to adapt to rapid changes in regulatory and financial pressures while simultaneously improving patient safety, quality, and performance. Findings and value The notion of continuous improvement rooted in continuous learning has been embraced as a battle cry from the boardroom to the bedside, and the MTS concept offers a meaningful lens through which we can begin to understand, study, and improve these complex organizational systems dedicated to tackling some of the most important goals of our time.