The checklist is not always applied as intended. The components that facilitate communication are often neglected. The time-out does not appear to be conducted as a team effort. It is plausible that the personnel's conception of risk and the perceived importance of different checklist items are factors that influence checklist usage. To improve compliance and involve the whole team, the concept of risk and the perceived relevance of checklist items for all team members should be addressed.

Greenland is a high-income country with free access to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) care, including highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). We aimed to examine the HIV prevalence, age and gender distribution, and the effectiveness of HAART on CD4 positive cell count, viral load (VL), and mortality in the Greenland HIV-infected population. In this population-based cohort study we collected demographic, clinical and biochemical data on all HIV-infected patients followed in health clinics since 1995. For each case, we identified 100 age- and gender-matched population controls. The HIV cohort included 103 patients of whom 91% were Inuit; 81% were infected heterosexually. Only 40% of the patients had a VL <400 copies/ml at 48 weeks after starting HAART, and patients on HAART had a substantial excess relative mortality compared with the general population (mortality rate ratio [MRR]: 10.6; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 6.9-16.4). After the introduction of HAART, the mortality decreased (MRR: 2.5; 95% CI 0.9-6.8), but remained high with a mortality rate of 62 per 1000 person-years (py) (95% CI 29-129). Our findings underline the difficulties of implementing successful HIV treatment even with unlimited economic resources and free access to health care.

Organizing work to promote cross-professional interaction can help the creation of social relations and norms, providing support for a common view. It can also help to decrease communication thresholds and establish stronger relations of trust. How this organization structure should be developed needs to be further investigated.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how organizational design could support teamwork and to identify organizational design principles that promote successful teamwork. Design/methodology/approach Since traditional team training sessions take resources away from production, the alternative approach pursued here explores the promotion of teamwork by means of organizational design. A wide and pragmatic definition of teamwork is applied: a team is considered to be a group of people that are set to work together on a task, and teamwork is then what they do in relation to their task. The input - process - output model of teamwork provides structure to the investigation. Findings Six teamwork enablers from the healthcare team literature - cohesion, collaboration, communication, conflict resolution, coordination, and leadership - are discussed, and the organizational design measures required to implement them are identified. Three organizational principles are argued to facilitate the teamwork enablers: team stability, occasions for communication, and a participative and adaptive approach to leadership. Research limitations/implications The findings could be used as a foundation for intervention studies to improve team performance or as a framework for evaluation of existing organizations. Practical implications By implementing these organizational principles, it is possible to achieve many of the organizational traits associated with good teamwork. Thus, thoughtful organization for teamwork can be used as an alternative or complement to the traditional team training approach. Originality/value With regards to the vast literature on team training, this paper offers an alternative perspective on how to improve team performance in healthcare.

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