Shared perceptions of a task among those responsible for its completion are important for achieving successful outcomes. This study proposes a framework for eliciting various aspects of team members' “mental models” (TMMs) of complex medical tasks. The intention is to provide ‘proof of concept’ for a methodology to measure similarities and differences between team members' perceptions of selected attributes of the task. Applying our framework in a gynecology ward, we use cognitive interviewing and concept mapping to reveal differences between the TMMs of doctor and nurse teams. These group differences are found to reflect limited awareness of the other group's level of involvement, workload, responsibilities and contributions to quality of care. We argue that such differences may lead to frustration, conflict, poor teamwork and risks to patient safety; but once identified, and subject to certain limitations, the differences could be used to develop interventions that will enhance teamwork.

负责完成任务的人对任务的共同看法对于取得成功的结果很重要。本研究提出了一个框架，用于引出团队成员在复杂医疗任务中的“心理模型”（TMM）的各个方面。目的是为一种方法提供“概念证明”，以衡量团队成员对任务选定属性的看法之间的异同。在妇科病房中应用我们的框架，我们使用认知访谈和概念图来揭示医生和护士团队 TMM 之间的差异。发现这些群体差异反映了对其他群体的参与程度、工作量、责任和对护理质量的贡献的有限认识。我们认为，这种差异可能会导致挫折、冲突、团队合作不佳和患者安全风险；但是一旦确定并受到某些限制，差异就可以用来制定干预措施，以加强团队合作。