A![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Teams-300x157.png\")
s an OT have you ever felt overlooked by the rest of the healthcare team?\u00a0 While I took that to heart as an OT, I also know it doesn\u2019t just happen to OTs.\u00a0 Talk to your peers who are nurses, physician assistants, PTs or speech therapists.\u00a0 They will all have a story about this topic.\u00a0 But it is all about the patient and OTs know that patients with all types of conditions do better when OT is an active participant on the team.<\/p>\n
I recently read about a great effort from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee to bring OT, PT, SLP and nursing students together for an inter-professional education simulation.\u00a0 Building Better Care through Teamwork – Expanding Inter-Professional Simulation at UWM<\/a>\u00a0 The students involved highlighted the value of learning more about what other disciplines do and how important \u00a0it was to learn other perspectives.\u00a0 The effort also helped the students build skills in communication, collaboration and leadership.\u00a0 All of which will benefit patient care. So read on for a couple of tips on strengthening your role on the team.<\/p>\n Interdisciplinary teams are most commonly used when managing a patient with complex needs.\u00a0 The need for this approach has become increasingly important as health care providers are more specialized. \u00a0Team collaboration occurs during regular care planning meetings to address complex needs as well as planning for a care transition. \u00a0With OT\u2019s holistic perspective, complex patient cases need OT for our expertise in functional performance, adaptation and support of independence.\u00a0 Be ready to contribute meaningfully to those cases.<\/p>\n One key to effective team work is effective communication.\u00a0\u00a0 Focus your clinical observations on the why or the functional impact.\u00a0 Especially valuable is the impact of functional deficits on safe discharge.\u00a0 Be sure your charting and conversations are to the point and include specifics on needed equipment, level of assistance or modifications.\u00a0 Strive to prevent service overlap by regularly consulting with PT and SLP to ensure you are providing complementary interventions.\u00a0 Finally, always emphasize the unique perspective of OT – a holistic approach addressing real life tasks most important to the patient\u2019s independence and enjoyment of life.<\/p>\n Advocate for a team approach in your organization by touting the advantages for both the organization and patient.\u00a0 The team approach can reduce medical errors, lower readmission rates and improve chronic care.\u00a0 Teams can eliminate clinical silos, optimize the workload by assigning tasks based on expertise, and speed up clinical decision making. Finally effective teams can reduce clinician burnout by sharing the mental load and fostering peer learning.<\/p>\n Teams are a powerful tool, so be prepared to contribute to complex cases, hone those communication skills, and advocate for stronger teams in your organization.\u00a0 Both patients and clinicians will be better off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As an OT have you ever felt overlooked by the rest of the healthcare team?\u00a0 While I took that to heart as an OT, I also know it doesn\u2019t just happen to OTs.\u00a0 Talk to your peers who are nurses, physician assistants, PTs or speech therapists.\u00a0 They will all have…<\/p>\n Read more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7954,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-management"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Teams.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7953"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7957,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7953\/revisions\/7957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}