Team Building

Teamwork is ubiquitous in the work world today. Teams work together both face-to-face and around the world as technology provides more and more opportunities for distance collaboration. The intricacies of forming effective working teams can be daunting because the stakes are often very high. Much time, effort, and other resources can be wasted if a team is not cohesive, communicative, motivated, accountable, and goal-oriented. When the project to be tackled is important and costly, as is often the case in health care, failure can be devastating to an organization, both in terms of outcomes and morale.

Health care administrators work in an environment that is particularly impacted by interprofessional efforts. Building an effective work team requires a great deal of insight, attention, and skill. For this Assignment, examine the following scenario and focus on effectively selecting team members, concepts of team management, and principles of team dynamics.

Scenario: You are the newly appointed chief operating officer for Thomason Health System (THS), a large health care delivery system that will be acquiring and implementing a new information technology system: "Electronic Medical Records" (EMRs). The organization has many and differing opinions about EMRs, but the CEO and the board of directors want you to establish an onboarding team that will help facilitate the organization-wide adoption of this new technology. Your main responsibility is to identify five team members from a short list of candidates and facilitate the launch of an effective team through conflict resolution and team building. This team will present a unified message and facilitate cultural change within the greater organization.

To prepare for this Assignment:

• Review the provided scenario, as well as the "Thomason Health System Background" and "Thomason Health System Bios" documents in this week's Learning Resources.
• As a team, begin preparing a strategic proposal to present to Thomason Health System's board of directors.

The Assignment

In a 5- to 7-page strategic proposal, address the following:

Part I: Team Creation

• Identify the five different onboarding team members you have selected.Note:These are not the members of the team you have been assigned to in this course; rather, they are the team members you selected from the "Thomason Health System Bios" document in the Learning Resources.
• Justify the reason for your selections and exclusions for the onboarding team, using the principles of interprofessional teams.
• Explain the different roles and responsibilities each team member will have as a part of the onboarding team.

Part II: Team Building

• Outline a team building plan using team building principles (i.e., Team STEPPS).
• Analyze potential challenges in the process of creating an effective onboarding team.
• Select techniques that will be used by the COO and within the team to identify, negotiate, and resolve conflicts.
• Describe an engagement plan to keep the onboarding team motivated and cohesive.

Part III: Engaging the Organization

• Explain how the onboarding team will apply principles of group dynamics to engage THS staff in the implementation and adoption of EMRs.
• Identify at least two appropriate strategies the onboarding team will use to address resistance to adopting EMRs by the THS staff.
• Create a plan for assessing the effectiveness of the onboarding team in three months, six months, and one year.
• Create a plan for assessing THS staff's engagement in the adoption of EMRs at three months, six months, and one year.

Note: The proposal to the board should be 5-7 pages, not including the title and reference pages. Include tables and charts as appropriate. Your Assignment must be written in standard edited English in a voice and style consistent with the audience. Be sure to support your work with specific citations from this week's Learning Resources and at least three additional scholarly sources. See the rubric for additional requirements related to research and scholarly writing.