This study examined the effects of computer-assisted communication on team decision-making performance as a function of the team's openness to experience. Seventy-nine teams performing a multiple-cue probability learning task were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 experimental conditions: (a) verbal communication or (b) computer-assisted communication (which combined verbal and computerized ...

BACKGROUND: As part of a continuous quality assurance process which we instituted in 1999, we review videotapes of selected high-risk deliveries at our hospital. We utilized our reviews to evaluate the occurrence of errors, and to evaluate team and leader functions during neonatal resuscitation. METHODS: We established accepted behavior for ...

The authors examined the role of cross-training in developing shared team-interaction mental models, coordination, and performance in a 2-experiment study using computer simulation methodology (for Experiment 1, N = 45 teams; for Experiment 2, N = 49 teams). Similar findings emerged across the 2 experiments. First, cross-training enhanced the development ...

BACKGROUND: Health care organizations have suffered a steady decrease in operating margins in recent years while facing increased competition and pressure to provide ever-higher levels of customer service, quality of care, and innovation in delivery methodologies. The ability to rapidly find and implement changes that will lead to strategic improvement ...

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, as well as the strong possibility of future similar attacks have obliged school crisis responders in our country to rethink usual ways of helping. In planning CISM services in U.S. schools, it ...

To help students develop successful strategies for learning how to learn and communicate complex information in cell biology, we developed a quarter-long cell biology class based on team projects. Each team researches a particular human disease and presents information about the cellular structure or process affected by the disease, the ...

Team learning is an approach to large-group teaching that combines the strengths of small-group interactive learning with teacher-driven content delivery. Team learning has been used successfully in professional disciplines other than medicine. The authors describe a field test of team learning in the setting of an internal medicine residency noontime ...

Empowerment-oriented design teams were structured in four states to promote collaborative practices among professionals and former clients. These teams were structured to serve as both learning and training systems, and they identified competencies for collaborative practices. Because these design teams represent a new learning and improvement system for child welfare ...

The purpose of this article is to stress the importance of working with interdisciplinary teams in neurorehabilitation and describe requirements of team effectiveness. It is not sufficient to focus only on different impairments associated with brain injury and offer individuals a variety of therapy. The essential aspect in neurorehabilitation is ...

The purpose of this study was to examine the possibility that feedback regarding team performance may influence team members' reports of organizational citizenship behaviors. Ninety-five teams of business students (N = 412) participated in a labor-scheduling simulation over a local area network. Teams were provided with false negative, false positive, ...

There are many challenges to effectively and efficiently translating evidence into practice. Potential strategies include (1) training more evidence-based practitioners in the art and science of evidence-based medicine, (2) enhancing the quality and availability of systematic reviews, and (3) more effectively linking evidence-based practitioners and evidence users through comprehensive behavioral ...

While many programs undertake formal assessment of student learning outcomes to satisfy accreditation standards, the ultimate goal of outcomes assessment is program improvement and increased student achievement. Properly designed and executed, outcomes assessment should tell the program how well it is operating and the extent to which it is contributing ...

BACKGROUND: Studies focusing on the impact of improvement efforts on the organization have yielded mixed results, which has increased interest in comparing the processes of improvement used. Data for a convenience sample of 92 quality improvement (QI) projects in 32 organizations were gathered from interviews and self-reported surveys from 1998 ...

Community-based programs have produced mixed results. Community capacity is thought to be a major determinant of program effectiveness. Thus, enhancing community capacity may increase the beneficial effects of existing programs and enhance future program effectiveness. This highlights the need to focus on understanding the components of capacity and the methods ...

OBJECTIVE: The authors describe a self-assessment training program for multidisciplinary mental health teams that was developed in a public multihospital system, the process of implementing the training at a state psychiatric hospital, and a measurement instrument, the Scale for Leadership Assessment and Team Evaluation (SLATE), which they have used for ...

1. Research on working with a multidisciplinary team in inpatient mental health care is underdeveloped. 2. Knowledge of how to work as part of a team is taken for granted within the realm of professional training. 3. In effective teams, members value the support, knowledge, and professional development that membership ...

This article describes the organization, curriculum, and outcomes for New Stories/New Cultures, an activity-based program for after-school enrichment in five schools in the low-income neighborhood near a major American university. The program encourages students (70% Hispanic-American, 30% African-American) to experience themselves as producers of culture, not just as consumers. Its ...

Despite the holistic approach inherent in the hospice philosophy, social work may be viewed in hospices as ancillary or secondary to medicine. Social work, in turn, may have a lack of training and sensitivity about other professions' expertise and values and as a result be unprepared to collaborate across the ...

BACKGROUND: Computerized human patient simulators (HPSs) have been used to improve diagnostic and therapeutic decision making. The goal of this study was to investigate the impact of HPSs and Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) on the development of trauma management skills and self-confidence in surgical interns. METHODS: Three teams of ...

Team building and teamwork are well entrenched in the American workplace. If you're independent, shy, or short on time, making decisions with a team may be one of the toughest situations you face. Learn how to get along with the rest of the group even if you don't buy in ...

This study used measures of team performance, organizational support, and supervisors' judgment to examine the consistency of ratings of teams by both their members as well as their supervisors. For 75 team members from 13 different work teams in different organizations Pearson correlation coefficients were used to assess the consistency ...

Musculoskeletal disorders are the leading cause of disability among people between 18 and 64 years of age. Patients with musculoskeletal injuries of the upper extremities are usually evaluated and treated by an individual physician and therapist. However, for patients who have problems, especially after being treated by a hand surgeon ...

AIMS: Effective communication enhances team building and is perceived to improve the quality of team performance. A recent publication from the Resuscitation Council (UK) has highlighted this fact and recommended that cardiac arrest team members make contact daily. We wished to identify how often members of this team communicate prior ...

BACKGROUND: Adverse drug events cause significant morbidity and mortality in health care. Many adverse drug events are due to medication errors and are preventable. In 1999 and 2000 the Patient Safety Center of Inquiry collaborated with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) to implement a quality improvement (QI) project designed ...

This study examined the effects of team decision accuracy, team member decision influence, leader consideration behaviors, and justice perceptions on staff members' satisfaction with the leader and attachment to the team in hierarchical decision-making teams. The authors proposed that staff members' justice perceptions would mediate the relationship between (a) team ...

The management world knows by now that to be effective in the workplace, an individual needs high emotional intelligence. What isn't so well understood is that teams need it, too. Citing such companies as IDEO, Hewlett-Packard, and the Hay Group, the authors show that high emotional intelligence is at the ...

The ability to communicate effectively with a multidisciplinary team in an assertive manner to resolve conflict, motivate others, and delegate tasks is a prerequisite skill to promote a harmonious work environment. Acquisition of this skill is often a combination of inherent attributes and learned experiences. This article describes a program ...

The implementation of the electronic medical record (EMR) is a process that involves knowledge and skills of technology and group dynamics. The literature was reviewed to identify the most effective methodology for EMR implementation. Integral to the success of any EMR implementation is the 'buy-in' of the organization. To facilitate ...

This report describes a 2-year, longitudinal study of one school district's effort to link site-based, collaborative evaluation with formal, centralized program evaluation. Participants formed a research team in partnership with a local university. Team members assisted leadership teams in identifying issues for informal, site-based assessments and then used the information ...

Providing a meaningful learning environment for each student represents a constant and ongoing challenge for faculty. This objective can be facilitated by active student participation in class interactions. The authors have developed the Constructive Engagement Method (CEM), an integrative method for actively involving students in the learning process. CEM permits ...

This paper presents LINDA, a prototype system designed to support virtual rehabilitation teams. LINDA enables professionals from different welfare-state agencies to collaborate in case management. Our approach to supporting teamwork involves the sharing of minimal case sets across organizational borders needed to provide a shared situation assessment among team members. ...

Leadership skills are important for many facets of professional life, but no known leadership training programs exist in North American veterinary schools. It was the purpose of this project to develop, deliver, and evaluate a leadership program for first-year veterinary students. Leadership attributes emphasized in the course included effective communication, ...

This article presents data from an evaluation of the Pennsylvania Student Assistance Program (SAP). Focusing on both program process and effectiveness, the evaluation was conducted to determine the overall efficacy of SAPs in Pennsylvania and, more specifically, how SAP is currently being implemented. Five data collection strategies were employed: statewide ...

Mongolia is a poor country that lost 30% of its GDP when the Soviet Bloc collapsed in 1990. Its health care system had the typical weaknesses of centrally planned economies--quantity rather than quality, excessive medical specialisation, dominance of the hospital sector, weak policy and management capabilities, little community participation in ...

NASA's newly restructured Mars Exploration Program (MEP) is finally on the way to Mars with the successful April 7 launch of the 2001 Mars Odyssey Orbiter. In addition, the announcement by the Bush Administration that the exploration of Mars will be a priority within NASA's Office of Space Science further ...

How does a person who wants to move into an executive role prepare him or herself to successfully transition into the executive suite? Personal and behavioral traits are the basic foundations. These include the ability to work with diverse groups of people, willingness to listen and appreciate ideas and views ...

Interest in teamwork has fluctuated over the last several decades, with recent renewed interest. As social workers become more involved in working with older people in the coming years, their success will hinge on collaboration with other health providers. Schools of social work and clinical sites must address this through ...

Malnutrition is common in older adults and is associated with poor outcomes. The causes and outcomes of malnutrition are discussed, and the TwoCal HN Med Pass program, designed to overcome poor dietary intake, is described. Benefits of the program, role of the pharmacist, identification of candidates for the TwoCal HN ...

The authors examined how leader briefings and team-interaction training influence team members' knowledge structures concerning processes related to effective performance in both routine and novel environments. Two-hundred thirty-seven undergraduates from a large mid-Atlantic university formed 79 three-member tank platoon teams and participated in a low-fidelity tank simulation. Team-interaction training, leader ...

Bill Parcells, one of the NFL's winningest coaches, offers business leaders three rules for reversing the fortunes of a losing team. He contends that the keys to motivating people are much the same whether they're playing on a football field or working in an office. The first rule is to ...

There is little documentation about the recruitment process for church-based health education programs. In this study, the authors recruit African American, Latino, and white churches and women members (age 50 to 80) for a randomized church-based trial of mammography promotion in Los Angeles County. Efforts to enhance recruitment began 10 ...

INTRODUCTION: Effective crew resource management (CRM) may play a major role in decreasing the number of accidents and increasing overall safety of air medical programs. The purpose of the study was to compare the responses of crew members, in a variety of situations, who received CRM training and those who ...

Financial incentives focused on individuals represent a naive understanding of the complexity of human motivation. This article recommends rethinking monetary incentives and moving toward the creation of workplaces that enable and allow the natural excellence that most individuals desire to achieve. Despite their wide use and superficial logic, monetary incentives ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This paper provides a description and evaluation of the reflecting team approach as a teaching method for family practice residents. We have used the reflecting team approach in our longitudinal behavioral health program for 6 years. Our purpose in using this approach is to 1) teach listening ...

OBJECTIVE: The effectiveness and efficiency of a mobile crisis program in handling 911 calls identified as psychiatric emergencies were evaluated, and the satisfaction of consumers and police officers with the program was rated. METHODS: The study retrospectively examined differences in subjects' demographic characteristics, hospitalization and arrest rates, and costs for ...

Described is the cooperative work of constructing team situation awareness within two teams of a military command and control unit. Specifically discussed is how the distributed cognitive and cooperative work of decision-making of the two teams is structured. The situation enabled two different ways of distributing information within the team: ...

This study investigated the effectiveness of experiential cross-training in a team context for team decision-making under time stress in a simulated naval surveillance task. It was hypothesized that teams whose members explicitly experience all team positions will perform better under time pressure due to a better shared Team Interaction Model ...

A method for identifying and measuring team skills, specifying team training objectives and the objective assessment of team performance is described. First, a theoretical model of team performance is outlined and then a version of Hierarchical Task Analysis specially adapted to analysing team tasks is described. The two are then ...

This paper presents a case study of an investigation into team behaviour in an energy distribution company. The main aim was to investigate the impact of major changes in the company on system performance, comprising human and technical elements. A socio-technical systems approach was adopted. There were main differences between ...

OBJECTIVE: There have been no large studies of middle school students to assess the association between team sports participation and risk-taking behaviors, despite evidence in high school and collegiate athletes. Our study evaluated whether team sports participation is associated with specific risk-taking behaviors among a biracial middle school population. DESIGN: ...