Interprofessional care teams: the perils of fads and fashions

AbstractIt is widely believed that interprofessional care teams can improve patient care and increase safety. This belief among key stakeholders has often led to the imposition of team-based approaches without an adequate understanding of internal team dynamics, with attendant problems in implementation, that have made their performance often fall short of their promise. In this essay, we will first explore the promise of teamwork while providing a definition. In actual practice, the internal dynamics of teams often impede their successful operation. Communication difficulties, status differences, and the complexity of the task all present substantial obstacles to the successful implementation of teams. However, in spite of these problems, teams are the latest fad with their symbolic adoption decoupling them from their actual performance.