Achieving Professionalism in Health Care Organizations

Outlines Charter on Professionalism for Health Care Organizations. Individual professionalism is essential to team effectiveness. Team effectiveness is a critical issue underpinning progress on most of the health care problem agenda, from improving outcomes to reducing unnecessary procedures. Patient care also can be understood as a chain of work processes, where excellence requires both the selection of the right processes and their correct completion. Evidence suggests that partial changes in organizations, particularly those emphasizing work process improvement without the training and cultural support, can undercut the commitments and create serious problems.