title: Service intangibility and its implications for the work coordination of primary healthcare multi-professional teams in Brazil.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In certain service activities, the intangibility of what is being produced hinders the vision of an expected result or product. In multi-professional teams, this difficulty becomes increasingly greater, as participants' perceptions are conditioned to their respective fields of knowledge and different professional experiences. This is a common situation in healthcare services.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To describe and explain the work coordination process applied by multi-professional teams in order to deal with the intangibility inherent in the healthcare services.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study involved six multi-professional teams from the public primary healthcare service in Brazil. Interviews and observations of team meetings were carried out, with focus on the critical elements of a coordination process: work plans and routines, roles and responsibilities, knowledge sharing, and a common reference history.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There is coexistence of two distinct coordination processes being performed in the same work activity: operational coordination, associated with activities that somehow follow standard procedures; and diagnostic coordination, associated with diagnosis construction, alternatives analysis and decision making.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The consequences of intangibility can be overcome by mechanisms that enable a common perspective among the participants involved in the productive process, and by the team members' familiarity with each other.
authors.forename: Iramaia
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Luna
authors.forename: Márcia Terra
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: da Silva
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008297:Male; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D024382:Professional Role
keywords: Work organization; coordination of work; health services