Teamwork Experiences and Patients' Satisfaction: A study of tertiary Hospital Outpatient Clinics in North-Central Nigeria

Abstract

A growing line of research indicates a relationship between a healthcare organization's culture and various performance measures. In these studies, a key cultural characteristic is the interest placed on staff teamwork. Few studies have examined teamwork culture relative to patient satisfaction, which is one of the most widely used performance measures for healthcare organizations. This study aim to assess staff ratings of teamwork and patients' satisfaction with health care quality at six specialist outpatient clinic settings in the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada - Abuja.  Surveys of staff perceptions of teamwork were then compared to patient satisfaction survey scores for strength and direction of correlation. Regression analysis measured the degrees of strength and correlation between subset scores of teamwork to the patient satisfaction scores. The findings from the study indicated good team work perception among staff and patients' satisfaction with quality of health care received in the clinics. In some of the clinics, staff ratings of teamwork was positively correlated with patients' satisfaction with care quality while a negative correlation was found in others. However, the differences in relationships were not statistically significant. Teamwork subsets of situational awareness (monitoring) and mutual support significantly impacted patient satisfaction. Our study showed that clinic types do not influence the relationship between staff teamwork experiences and patients' satisfaction. However there is the need to emphasize situational awareness (monitoring) and mutual support among clinic staff working together with a view to build constructively on team work experience.

Key words: Teamwork, patients' satisfaction, Staff, clinics, Relationship.