Cabarles, Keanna Philline M. BSN 3-A3 CASE STUDY 2 The health team What is a team? A team is a special type of group. Like other groups, the team has a purpose or goal. In a team each member has special skills or responsibilities. It is necessary for every member of the team to work together and to cooperate if the team is going to succeed in its tasks. A football (soccer) team is an example. Each of the eleven players has responsibility. for a particular part of the football field. If each team member does not handle his or her responsibility well, the team will probably score no goals. No one team member is more important than another. It may be true that only one person kicks the ball into the goal, but if the other members of the team had not been doing their job, this one person would never have had the chance of scoring. Members of the health team The goal or purpose of the health team is to improve and maintain the health of the community it serves. In order to achieve that goal, the health team is made up of different members who have been trained in special skills. Think of the staff at your local health centre, dispensary, or clinic. There may be nurses, public health inspectors, health aides, records clerks, dispensers, midwives, medical assistants, and maintenance staff. All of these people must work together to make sure that health care reaches people in the community. Of course the physician is a member of the health team, but not every health centre or clinic will have a doctor present all the time. Many have doctors who visit once a week or once a month. Sick people who cannot be treated at a health centre are referred to the nearest hospital where the health team is much larger and ma, include doctors, nurses, midwives, laboratory technicians, X-ray technicians, and hospital aides. The larger hospitals may also have dentists, physical therapists, pharmacists, health educators, administrators, and social workers. Responsibilities of team members Let us look at the example of a child health programme in a local health centre. The nursing staff examine both well and ill children to see how they are growing. They treat some sick children and refer others to the doctors. They provide preventive services such as immunization. The dispensers provide medicaments for sick children and keep a supply of vaccines for prevention. The midwives try to see that healthy babies enter the world by providing antenatal care and a safe delivery. Then midwives follow the children up as they begin to grow. The records clerks maintain records in good order so that the history and progress of all the children can be seen easily. The environment in which the children live must be healthy. Through home visits and community projects, the public health inspector works towards a healthy community environment. The maintenance staff at the centre or clinic guarantee that the place will be clean and welcoming. These are just a few of the responsibilities of each team member. All are important for promoting child health. The situation will be similar in any health programme. Team leadership and cooperation Like formal groups, teams have leaders. The leaders, however, are not elected' neither do they inherit their positions. In fact the leaders may change from time to time depending on the project. For the normal administrative work of the team, it is often the most senior or experienced member of the nursing or environmental health staff who organizes the team's activities at a health centre. When a doctor is present, she or he usually takes on that responsibility. The leadership of a specific project will depend on what the project is about. If the project is mostly concerned with the health of pregnant women, the midwife or the nurse will naturally give leadership and direction to team efforts. Should the project deal with environmental hygiene, the sanitarian, health inspectors, or health superintendent will assume leadership. What we have said so far about sharing responsibilities and cooperation belongs to the domain of the ideal. Teams do not always work so well together. While a football team practices together regularly, members of a health team sometimes tend to work on their own. It is sad when they do not share their experience and do not ask other team members for help. Health education methods and skills can be used to encourage better team work. Each member should try to promote good relationships and communication among all team members. When there are projects to work on, ways should be found for everyone to participate and contribute their particular expertise. Discussion groups and meetings (see the next section on conducting meetings) are useful tools for helping the team plan and evaluate programmes. It is. through regular meetings that progress can be evaluated, relationships can grow among members, and new problems can be identified and solved. When the team does meet, observe the behavior of the members, including yourself. Do they make for a healthy and successful group? If a health team works in the same way as the Unity committee, it will never achieve its goal of improving community health. Health education skills can encourage mature group behavior like that of the members of the Progress Committee. Health education duties of team members The health team is a place where members can work together to improve their health education skills. These skills can serve to improve the quality of the team-work. They should also be used when the team carries out any programme. During team meetings, members can decide who will be responsible for which types of health education. In the child health programme, the nurses can arrange programmes for informal groups of mothers at the clinic. They can also give individual counselling to mothers and children with problems. The environmental health staff can organize community meetings and projects. The dispensers can educate patients about their drugs, so that they will be able to take them correctly. 1. Think of other educational activities that would be appropriate for each team member. It would be important for the team members to have meetings and gatherings because this will encourage them to have an open communication with people from work and realize that they can have their relationships stronger through channeling out and branching out their friendships. It would be easier for them to have an open communication in regards to their patient care and safety because they wouldn’t be indifferent of each other, and they know the people first hand. Other than that, they would also have team buildings and seminars so that they’ll know how to work together as a team more effectively and efficiently. Even though they are working together all the time, they should always be reminded of how a strong team works and how a strong team can deliver better results, in regards to their patient’s safety and improvement. 2. Suppose you are organizing health programmes for (a) the teenagers, (b) the elderly, and (c) the farmers in your community. 3. What would be the responsibility of each health team member in each of these programmes? The nurses will supervise the programs by planning out the list of events that are done and who are the assign persons in each section of the program. Other nurses will provide the health education and the seminars together with the doctors and midwives. They will serve as the speakers and the hosts of the program. Some of the nurses, assisted by the midwives will conduct the assessment of the clients (teenagers, elderly, and the farmers). They are then referred to the the doctors which will provide medical check ups for the teenagers, elderly and the farmers. After the check up, if the doctor has prescribed medications, they can get it from the dispensers, which will also educate them about the drugs. 4. What would be the health education duties of each member? The nurse and the midwives can provide education about the vital signs of the client, if they ask what is the normal blood pressure level and etc. Questions about the patient’s condition itself would be answered by the physician. The dispensers will provide data about medication administration, what are the expected side effects and management. 5. How should other community workers be involved in such programmes? The barangay health workers can help manage the materials needed in the program like the sound system, tables, and chairs and they could help disseminate the information across the barangay that there would be a program that may help them. The barangay tanod will help set-up the place and arrange the tables and chairs and also will be part of the after clean up of the program.
