The health care system is complex and its myriad and interconnected parts give it a unique perspective regarding workplace communication. Effective communication has been linked to the delivery of high quality health care and safety in the work environment (World Health Organization, 2009). Furthermore, teamwork in nursing is an important component of effective healthcare because it supports patient wellness, job satisfaction, and commitment to organizations (Gonzalez & Rotman, 2010). In addition, teamwork in nursing leads to greater efficiency. This is due to the synergies among colleagues and the collective pooling of skills, knowledge and resources around problems that teamwork promotes. Therefore, teamwork is important in nursing because it ensures safety in work, commitment to organization, job satisfaction and most importantly high quality healthcare to patients. .
Safety in nursing is directly related to the health care process because when safety is disregarded, it can affect the outcome of the health care process an individual is undergoing. The World Health Organization (2009) posits that health care organizations ought to change their outlook so that it is ". . . easy to do the right thing, and hard to do the wrong thing for patients" (p. 12). Thus, hospital staff, including nurses, ought to have a safety culture that stresses safety in the work environment so that both worker and patient are protected. Kutzin (2010) points out that it is also for this reason that the health care industry promotes teamwork since the overall safety standing of the industry is improved by teams that work together to reduce accidents. .
Apart from enhancing safety in the health care profession, teamwork in nursing also leads to greater commitment to the organization as well as greater job satisfaction. A major reason why nurses often look for new professions is stress, either in the work environment or at the organizational level.
