Relationships among the health team.

The authors describe briefly some of the factors which determine the degree of cohesiveness in a group medical practice.When examined as a functioning unit delivering service to patients, the professionals involved work as equals making independent and interdependent decisions, as each manages his part of the practice. But divisions occur in the areas of overall decision making, and in legal and economic matters. In the authors' own group there is a structural change underway which will enable all physicians in the group to become partners, and divide income equally.The allied health professionals to date remain professionally equal but answers will have to be worked out that take account of new working relations developing between them and physicians. The legal and economic traditions developed in the past are inadequate in the authors' view in the present situation.