Introduction/Background: Nursing Resource Teams (NRT) are a staffing strategy utilized by acute care hospitals to fulfill daily staffing vacancies caused by sick calls, vacation, and patient acuity. Effective teamwork is a critical component to providing safe patient care and the literature suggests that transient team membership, such as NRT nurses, are a barrier to teamwork. NRTs are being used more frequently than ever and yet their perspective on teamwork has not been addressed in the literature. The purpose of this study was to identify NRT nurses' perceptions of teamwork. Methods: Q-methodology was used for this study. Statements about teamwork were derived from the literature and a focus group with NRT nurses. A convenience sample of 34 NRT Registered Nurses and Registered Practical Nurses at a local hospital organization sorted a representative list of 41 statements about teamwork along a scale of -5 (strongly disagree) to +5 (strongly agree) on a Q-sort table. Iterated principal factor analysis and varimax rotation were performed using the qfactor program in Stata. Results: Three factors emerged with the following themes: (1) feeling underappreciated, (2) being flexible and confident, and (3) being unintegrated. A total of 30 participants loaded across the three factors, with no statistically significant demographic correlations. Distinguishing statements helped to define the characteristics of each factor. Four participants did not load on to any factor and therefore were excluded from further analysis. Conclusion: These findings represent perceptions from only one group of NRT nurses and no opportunity was given for participants to explain their sorting decisions. More research should be conducted to expand upon these perceptions of teamwork using an in-depth qualitative approach. NRT nurses perceive themselves to be knowledgeable, skilled, and able to provide effective care across a variety of patient units; however, some of the nurses feel underappreciated and unintegrated into the unit teams. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / This study explores nursing resource team (NRT) nurses’ perceptions of teamwork as well as their barriers and facilitators to effective teamwork. Q-methodology was used for this study. A literature review on NRTs and a scoping review on teams and teamwork were conducted. The literature and a focus group with NRT nurses were used to identify a representative list of statements about teamwork (n=41). Thirty-four NRT nurses sorted these statements into a table, and using a by-person exploratory factor analysis, three groups of NRT nurses emerged with the following themes: (1) feeling underappreciated; (2) being flexible and confident; and (3) feeling unintegrated. Future research should focus on exploring in-depth the perceptions of teamwork from NRT nurses and comparing unit-based and NRT nurses perceptions of teamwork.

The study aims to gain an understanding of how the seasonal recruitment and division of responsibilities within the Resource Team at Region Gotland currently established in order to find opportunities for improvement in the process. The study is based on two questions of aim, "How do the seasonal recruitment and the division of responsibilities currently look like?" And "How can the seasonal recruitment process be developed?". The data material has been collected through qualitative methods in the form of interviews, observations of the daily operations and provision of internal documents. The material shows that there are certain ambiguities when it comes to seasonal recruitment in its entirety, and also when it comes to the distribution of responsibility among the employees, whereas there is uncertainty who is responsible for the different activities in the process. The problem that can arise in the case of an ambiguous division of responsibility is that employees do not know what is expected of them in their work roles, which can result in tasks not being performed. To develop and hopefully improve the seasonal recruitment process, a visualization of the process is inspired by the model for process charts, blueprinting. The Resource Team should clarify the division of responsibilities associated with the seasonal recruitment as some activities currently have no one in charge. It is advised and proposed that the Resource Team should create a work role in order to delegate the responsibilities in case of absence. / Studien syftar till att få en förståelse för hur sommarrekryteringen och ansvarsfördelningen inom Resursteamet ser ut i dagsläget för att kunna finna förbättringsmöjligheter i processen. Studien bygger på två frågeställningar, Hur ser sommarrekryteringen och ansvarsfördelningen ut i nuläget? och Hur kan processen för sommarrekryteringen utvecklas?. Datamaterialet har insamlats genom kvalitativa metoder i form av två intervjuer, observationer och tillhandhållandet av interna dokument. Materialet påvisar att det finns vissa tvetydigheter när det kommer till sommarrekryteringen i sin helhet, men även när det gäller fördelningen av ansvar medarbetarna sinsemellan och vem som ansvarar för de olika aktiviteterna i processen. Problemet som kan uppstå vid en tvetydig ansvarsfördelning är att medarbetarna inte vet vad som förväntas av dem i sina arbetsroller vilket kan resultera i att arbetsuppgifter inte utförs eller att saker och ting faller mellan stolarna. För att utveckla och förhoppningsvis förbättra sommarrekryteringsprocessen föreslås en visualisering av processen med inspiration av processkartmodellen, blueprinting. Resursteamet bör även tydliggöra ansvarsfördelningen kopplat till sommarrekryteringen, i dagsläget finns det vissa aktiviteter som ingen ses ansvara för. Det blir även påtagligt för Resursteamet om en ansvarig medarbetare är frånvarande och därmed föreslås det att Resursteamet beslutar om en medarbetare med ett sekundärt ansvar för aktiviteten.