ABSTRACT
Delivering safe, high-quality, efficient, and effective health care requires multidisciplinary teams that are proficient in coordination and collaboration. Fragmented care is a key contributor to poor quality outcomes including preventable readmissions, medication errors, and adverse drug events. Care is fragmented both within facilities and across facilities, leading to miscommunication, and duplicative care, and missed opportunities, often to the detriment of the patients. Strong teamsboth clinical care teams and performance improvement teams-are necessary to improve care coordination and reduce the fragmentation that leads to low-quality, high-cost health care. An important role for leaders is to “get the right people on the bus” and lead and coach teams to success through promoting open communication and transparency, maximizing the skills and contributions of all team members, and focusing on execution toward the goal of delivering safe, high-quality care.
