Healthcare teams as complex adaptive systems: Focus on interpersonal interaction

•The CAL™ OC Questionnaire measures a team’s self-organisation and adaptability.•Palliative home care teams score high but with significant individual differences.•The questionnaire identifies areas for quality improvement. The aim of this study is to test the feasibility of a tool to objectify the functioning of healthcare teams operating in the complexity zone, and to evaluate its usefulness in identifying areas for team quality improvement. We distributed The Complex Adaptive Leadership (CAL™) Organisational Capability Questionnaire (OCQ) to all members of one palliative care team (n=15) and to palliative care physicians in Flanders, Belgium (n=15). Group discussions were held on feasibility aspects and on the low scoring topics. Data was analysed calculating descriptive statistics (sum score, mean and standard deviation). The one sample T-Test was used to detect differences within each group. Both groups of participants reached mean scores ranging from good to excellent. The one sample T test showed statistically significant differences between participants’ sum scores within each group (p