Teamwork and Teamwork Training in Health care: An Integration and a Path Forward

Although teamwork is prevalent and important in almost every industry, this is particularly the case within the health care industry (e.g., Leonard & Frankel, 2011). Enhancing teamwork has been heralded as a prime factor in addressing the troubling pronouncement made by the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) 1999 report, “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System,” which found that as many as 98,000 deaths occur annually as a result of medical errors (Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 1999). In fact, the Quality Interagency Coordination Task Force (which was established in response to the IOM 1999 report) suggested that improving teamwork dynamics was a key way to improve patient safety. [...]