An Intervention to Enhance Nursing Staff Teamwork and Engagement

An intervention to enhance teamwork and staff engagement was tested on a medical unit in an acute care hospital and showed that the intervention resulted in a significantly lower patient fall rate, staff ratings of improved teamwork on the unit, and lower staff turnover and vacancy rates.

Abstract

Numerous studies have concluded that work group teamwork leads to higher staff job satisfaction, increased patient safety, improved quality of care, and greater patient satisfaction. Although there have been studies on the impact of multidisciplinary teamwork in healthcare, the teamwork among nursing staff on a patient care unit has received very little attention from researchers. In this study, an intervention to enhance teamwork and staff engagement was tested on a medical unit in an acute care hospital. The results showed that the intervention resulted in a significantly lower patient fall rate, staff ratings of improved teamwork on the unit, and lower staff turnover and vacancy rates. Patient satisfaction ratings approached, but did not reach, statistical significance.