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ThesisCC BY V4.0, Open Access
Thesis
Power and teamwork: Applying systems thinking to understand and prevent medication management failures in hospitals
University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
Master of Science, University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
2026
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25907/01020
Abstract
Healthcare teams comprise of clinical and other professional staff who perform a range of tasks critical to patient safety and quality of care, often under conditions of time pressure and high workload. Communication failures within healthcare teams are a major factor contributing to adverse medical events across Australian and international healthcare contexts. Power relationships (real or perceived) between and among professional healthcare groups have been shown to be a significant factor contributing to communication failures and teamwork breakdowns. However, despite substantial research undertaken to improve communication and teamwork skills within healthcare teams across a variety of settings, there is currently limited research that has examined the impact of power on team performance, and patient safety. Further, existing research has not used approaches that are able to model the complexity of teamwork in healthcare, and how teamwork can fail. This thesis addresses this gap by applying systems thinking approaches to: a) understand power relationships within multidisciplinary healthcare teams; b) analyse the impacts of power on team performance; and c) forecast the risks associated with teamwork breakdowns in healthcare teams. This will provide a better understanding of the role of power in accident causation within the healthcare domain. To address these aims, the research described in this thesis involved the following research tasks: 1) A systematic literature review of theoretical concepts and key issues related to power and team performance in healthcare; 2) Application of the Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST; Stanton, 2013) method to identify power in the task, social and information networks of the hospital medication management system; 3) Application of the Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork-Broken Links method (EAST-BL; Stanton & Harvey, 2017) to forecast the potential impacts of teamwork breakdowns, including the influence of power, by breaking network linkages within the hospital medication management system. The key theoretical contribution of this thesis is the first application of systems theory for the purposes of understanding teamwork breakdown, including the influence of power, in healthcare. The key methodological contribution of this thesis lies in the application of systems thinking approaches to both understand, analyse and forecast the impact of teamwork failures, including power, on team performance in healthcare. Finally, the practical contributions of this research include an improved understanding of how teamwork breakdown, including power, impacts performance within healthcare and proposes a set of mitigation strategies. This information could be used to inform the design of interventions to address teamwork and power-related issues in healthcare settings to improve team performance, and ultimately patient safety.
Details
- Title
- Power and teamwork: Applying systems thinking to understand and prevent medication management failures in hospitals
- Authors
- Erin Stevens - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Law and Society
- Contributors
- Paul Salmon (Principal Supervisor) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Centre for Human Factors and Systems ScienceGemma Read (Co-Supervisor) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - Psychology
- Awarding institution
- University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- Degree awarded
- Master of Science
- Publisher
- University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- DOI
- 10.25907/01020
- Organisation Unit
- School of Law and Society
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991212980802621
- Output Type
- Thesis
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