GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: AHRQ Patient Safety Network ► Effects of interdisciplinary team care interventions on general medical wards: a systematic review.

Interdisciplinary team-based interventions have little effect on traditional outcomes. Might need new outcome measures?JAMA Intern Med. 2015 Jun 15; [Epub ahead of print].

Effects of interdisciplinary team care interventions on general medical wards: a systematic review.

Pannick S, Davis R, Ashrafian, et al. JAMA Intern Med. 2015 Jun 15; [Epub ahead of print].

Interdisciplinary team care interventions are increasingly common on medical wards, based partly on a widespread belief that these practices will improve efficiency and patient safety. This systematic review sought to evaluate the performance of hospital-based interdisciplinary teams on patient outcomes. The majority of studies have chosen length of stay, complications, readmission, or mortality rates as their primary outcomes, but interdisciplinary teams rarely seem to affect these traditional quality measures, which may be insensitive to teamwork improvements in care delivery. The authors call for establishing more relevant outcomes to evaluate interdisciplinary team interventions. An accompanying commentary notes that this systematic review provides an opportunity to highlight the potential harms of choosing the wrong metrics to evaluate an intervention, which can undermine a program's mission.

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