Consensus
on how rehabilitation teamwork and services are optimally coordinated
continues to be a work in progress. One area of recent research has been
inpatient-rehabilitation team conferences in stroke. The prevalence of
Americans living with stroke is expected to gradually increase as the
U.S. population ages, as will the related direct and indirect costs.
Effective interdisciplinary team conferences during acute-stroke
inpatient-rehabilitation are key to managing long-term costs while
improving functional outcomes. Effective team conferences help to
identify patients at risk for medical complications and
institutionalization and help to determine interventions that will focus
on patients’ medical, physical, cognitive, emotional, and social
barriers to recovery and barriers to a community/home disposition. This
scoping review paper identifies and analyzes literature on theory and
structure of effective teams with the focus on stroke interdisciplinary
rehabilitation team conferences and offers suggestions for improvement.
Potential flaws of commonly used team conference formats are described.
Studies are outlined showing associations between stroke patient
outcomes and better care coordination and leadership in medical
teamwork; and 2 examples of successful interdisciplinary team conference
models used in stroke inpatient-rehabilitation are provided that
support a case for a proactive, conscious structure to team conferences.
Given the complexity of many stroke patients’ clinical care, greater
attention to team functioning, and especially team conference leadership
and structure, may be a promising area of focus to improve the quality
of health care services for people with stroke.
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