Primary care networks and team effectiveness: the case of a large-scale quality improvement disparity reduction program.

Primary care networks and team effectiveness: the case of a large-scale quality improvement disparity reduction program. J Interprof Care. 2018 Nov 13;:1-9 Authors: Spitzer-Shohat S, Goldfracht M, Key C, Hoshen M, Balicer RD, Shadmi E Abstract Documentation of primary care teams' involvement in disparity reduction efforts exists, yet little is known about how teams interact or perceive their effectiveness. We investigated how the social network and structural ties among primary-care-clinic team members relate to their perceived team effectiveness (TE), in a large-scale disparity reduction intervention in Israel's largest insurer and provider of services. A mixed-method design of Social Network Analysis and qualitative data collection was employed. 108 interviews with medical, nursing, and administrative teams of 26 clinics and their respective managerial units were performed and information on the organizational ties, analyzing density and centrality, collected. Pearson correlations examined association between network measures and perceived TE. Clinics with strong intra-clinic density and high clinic-subregional-management density were positively correlated with perceived TE. Clinic in-degree centrality was also positively associated with perceived TE. Qualitative analyses support these findings with teamwork emerging as a factor which can impede or facilitate teams' ability to design and implement disparity reduction interventions....
Source: Journal of Interprofessional Care - Category: Health Management Tags: J Interprof Care Source Type: research