Using complexity to promote group learning in health care

Multidisciplinary groups are common in the health care arena, from operating teams to mental health treatment groups to guideline development groups. Differences among group members in information, background, training and skills can potentially help groups reach good decisions and complete complex tasks in variable circumstances. Too often, however, differences in values, status and preferences prevent these groups from achieving the potential benefits of diversity, marooning them instead in an unproductive fixed state.

Drawing on the literature on diversity and complex adaptive systems, we discuss how to improve the functioning of multidisciplinary groups by increasing the spontaneous flow of information and energy to shift groups into the complex state.

Differentiation needs to be balanced by integration. Differences that pose obstacles need to be transformed into gradients to achieve complex self-organization and effective group coordination.