Team Dynamics and Group Decision Making

Individuals make decisions differently in teams than they do on their own. Some of these changes are improvements. Teams are more likely to bring different perspectives to the table. Sometimes, however, they can make decision making worse. An extensive literature exists on team building.

Within medical decision making, this literature has been applied to understanding how to improve clinical performance within teams. Particular attention has been devoted to performance improvement and eliminating preventable errors. Although this literature began with the study of individual cognition and performance, there has been increasing recognition that care is provided by multiple providers, working in formal or informal teams. Within institutions, care must be handed off; issues of communications and the transfer of information are thus critical. One element is the ...