Selected determinants of the quality of hospital care. II. Managing a therapeutic team.

The effects of teamwork depend to a large extent on the organizational skills of the manager. In health care units a physician/ward head is responsible for coordinating the work of a therapeutic team. The study was undertaken to discover to what extent doctors and nurses are aware that the ward head manages the work of the therapeutic team, and how they evaluate the skills of their managers. The study covered 161 doctors and 339 nurses from 4 hospitals with accreditation and 17 health units which did not possess the Quality Certificate. The study was conducted by the method of a diagnostic survey, and the technique was a questionnaire form. The results of the survey showed that charge nurses in hospitals with accreditation and ward heads in hospitals without the Quality Certificate significantly more often perceived the effectiveness of managing a therapeutic team by a ward head/manager of a clinic in positive terms. A greater number of negative evaluations were expressed by charge nurses in hospitals without accreditation and ward head nurses in hospitals with the Quality Certificate. It was confirmed that doctors and nurses from hospitals with accreditation significantly more frequently perceived the ward head as the manager of the therapeutic team, compared to the staff of hospitals without the Quality Certificate.