The Impact of Workflow Interruptions on Team Communication in Multidisciplinary Healthcare Settings

Workflow interruptions are skyrocketing in the contemporary workplace, especially in collaborative team environments. The reliance on (communication) technologies and accessibility through e-mail and phone creates increasing avenues for frequent teamwork interruptions. Importantly, interruptions not only affect team members individually, but spill over and affect team functioning as a whole. In this study, we investigate in fourteen multidisciplinary team meetings in hybrid healthcare settings (1) which workflow interruptions naturally emerge and (2) how these interruptions influence the communication valence as well as communication clarification. We find evidence for a highly interruptive meeting environment, characterized by videoconferencing issues, disruptive beepers/phones that go off, and people leaving and entering the meeting room during patient discussions. Contrary to what was expected, team members initially respond to the interruption with positive statements (i.e., humor) as a coping mechanism, which decreases significantly in the minutes after the interruptive event. After the interruptive episode, significantly more negative statements, as well as conversational repetitiveness occurs. This research contributes to understanding naturally occurring workflow interruptions in actual organizational healthcare teams, by providing objective and fine-grained empirical insights into how workflow interruptions affect changes in the teams’ communication.