ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that socio-technical research approaches based on concepts of distributed cognition, situated learning and activity theory will become increasingly important for understanding healthcare teamwork and implementing teamwork across various clinical environments. The key insight for implementing teamwork is that mutual knowledge and trust are team-level resources that arise and are continually renewed over time through interactions, conversations and other relationally based experiences among team members. One of the most interesting unsolved challenges regarding healthcare teamwork is how it can be sustained. It is important for clinicians and researchers to consider teamwork and safety with respectful awareness of the complex and powerful forces that surround clinical healthcare education and practice. Creating exceptional teamwork more often than not induces an ‘organizational immune response’ against the transformed local team environment, as the local unit begins to function and relate within the larger organization in unfamiliar ways.
