Teamwork in Healthcare
The primary goal of teamwork in healthcare is to improve this.
✅ What is patient outcomes?
Informed consent protects this ethical principle.
✅ What is autonomy?
HIPAA protects this category of sensitive patient information.
✅ What is Protected Health Information (PHI)?
The “D” in DECIDE stands for this.
✅ What is Define the problem?
This is the first step of the LEARN model where providers listen to a patient’s perspective.
✅ What is Listen?
What is the main difference between a multidisciplinary team and an interdisciplinary team in healthcare?
✅ Answer: A multidisciplinary team works in parallel with each member contributing expertise separately, while an interdisciplinary team integrates roles, creating a coordinated plan with shared goals and communication.
Name one of the three main elements of informed consent.
✅ What are disclosure, capacity, or voluntariness?
True or False: A patient’s address is considered PHI.
✅ What is True?
The “C” in DECIDE reminds us to do this before choosing an action.
✅ What is Consider the consequences?
The LEARN step that requires providers to explain their own perspective of the problem.
✅ What is Explain?
A patient recovering from a stroke receives therapy from a physical therapist, occupational therapist, and speech therapist. Each writes their own plan of care with minimal overlap. Which type of team is this?
✅ Answer: Multidisciplinary team.
If a patient does not understand the risks of a procedure, which element of informed consent is missing?
✅ What is disclosure?
This HIPAA rule limits access and use of patient information to what is necessary for a job function.
✅ What is the Minimum Necessary Rule?
The purpose of DECIDE is to help make decisions that are both _______ and _______.
✅ What are ethical and effective?
This step encourages providers to recognize and respect cultural differences.
✅ What is Acknowledge?
Explain how communication differs between an interdisciplinary team and a multidisciplinary team.
✅ Answer: Interdisciplinary teams communicate frequently and collaboratively, often holding joint meetings to create a unified plan. Multidisciplinary teams communicate less, often sharing notes but keeping discipline-specific boundaries.
A patient with advanced dementia signs a consent form. Why might this be invalid?
✅ What is lack of capacity?
Sharing a patient’s diagnosis in the hospital cafeteria would be considered what?
✅ What is a HIPAA violation?
This DECIDE step requires you to choose the option that aligns best with ethical principles.
✅ What is Identify the best option?
In LEARN, this step is where the provider makes recommendations.
✅ What is Recommend?
A patient’s care team includes a nurse who begins providing aspects of physical therapy after training from the PT, with ongoing support from the whole team. Which type of team does this reflect, and what is the risk/benefit?
✅ Answer: Transdisciplinary team. Benefit: flexibility and holistic care. Risk: role blurring may cause confusion or errors if boundaries are not respected.
A provider pressures a patient to agree to surgery. This violates which component of informed consent?
✅ What is voluntariness?
Name two categories of PHI that are commonly protected under HIPAA.
✅ What are (examples: medical records, billing information, lab results, names, dates of birth, insurance information)?
In a case of medical error disclosure, which DECIDE step involves speaking directly with the patient?
✅ What is Develop and implement an action plan?
This final step involves working with the patient to create a mutually acceptable care plan.
✅ What is Negotiate?