Care Team
A Care Team in Salesforce Health Cloud is the set of users (clinicians, social workers, case managers, family members, and others) coordinating on one patient's care.
Definition
A Care Team in Salesforce Health Cloud is the set of users (clinicians, social workers, case managers, family members, and others) coordinating on one patient's care. Each Care Team Member record links a user to the Patient (Person Account) with a defined role (Primary Care Physician, Care Coordinator, RN Coach, Social Worker, Family Caregiver, Emergency Contact), a relationship type, and an access level. The Care Team is what makes Health Cloud multi-disciplinary; everyone working with the patient sees a unified view of who is involved, what they own, and how to reach them.
Care Teams matter because chronic care, behavioural health, and post-acute scenarios involve many people working with the same patient over months or years. Without an explicit Care Team, the patient's record becomes a flat list of unrelated interventions; with one, the Care Team panel surfaces the entire roster on one page, contact info inline, and an at-a-glance picture of accountability. The same model works in Public Sector Solutions as Case Team for social-services participants, with similar mechanics under different vocabulary. Care Teams underpin Care Plan task assignment, Care Program staffing, and the cross-disciplinary collaboration that Health Cloud was built to enable.
How Care Teams structure multi-disciplinary care
Care Team Member records
Each Care Team Member is a junction record between the Patient (Person Account) and a User. Standard fields include Role (PCP, Care Coordinator, Specialist), Relationship Type, Access Level, Effective Date, and End Date. The role drives downstream workflow; the access level drives sharing.
Role conventions
Most Health Cloud orgs standardise the role picklist around clinical convention: PCP, Specialist, Nurse, Care Coordinator, Social Worker, Behavioural Health Specialist, Pharmacist, plus non-clinical roles like Caregiver, Emergency Contact, Legal Guardian. The picklist matters; without consistent role values, reports and assignment rules become noisy.
Sharing through the Care Team
Care Team membership grants the user access to the patient's records based on the role's access level. Care Coordinators usually get full Read/Write; family members get Read Only. The sharing is configured through Health Cloud's standard package; admins typically refine it per role rather than redesigning from scratch.
Care Team and Care Plan tasks
Care Plan tasks assign to specific Care Team members. The role determines which tasks the user is eligible to receive: nursing assessments to nurses, social interventions to social workers, prescription review to pharmacists. Without explicit Care Team assignment, task routing breaks.
Care Team display and visualisation
The Care Team component on the Patient Card surfaces the team as a roster with photos, roles, and one-click contact actions. The Actionable Relationship Center (ARC) renders the same data as a relationship graph for organisations modelling complex family or institutional structures.
Care Team versus Account Team
The standard Account Team Member object is the B2B equivalent (cross-functional staff on an Account). Care Team Member is a Health Cloud variant with clinical-specific fields and roles. The two models are similar but separate; Health Cloud orgs use Care Team for patients, the standard Account Team for non-patient relationships.
Care Team in Public Sector Solutions
Public Sector Solutions uses the same model under the name Case Team for participants in social-services programs. The vocabulary differs; the structure is identical. Both products share Health Cloud's underlying objects with industry-specific labels.
Common operational pitfalls
Three patterns recur. Care Team members not removed when they leave the patient's care leak access invisibly. Roles applied inconsistently across patients break reporting. And families with complex structures (multiple caregivers, blended households) need ARC to model accurately; flat Care Team lists do not represent the relationships.
How to operate Care Teams effectively
Care Teams are operational hubs as much as data structures. The configuration is in role design, sharing, and routine membership audits.
- Standardise the Role picklist
Define the clinical roles your org uses (PCP, Specialist, Nurse, Care Coordinator, Social Worker, Caregiver). Add to the Care Team Role picklist. Apply consistently.
- Configure sharing per role
Use Health Cloud's standard sharing model as the starting point. Adjust access levels per role to match your org's privacy and operational needs.
- Build Care Team members at patient onboarding
Every patient should have a Care Team populated at intake or enrolment. Without it, task assignment and visibility break from day one.
- Audit Care Team membership routinely
Build a quarterly audit report that finds inactive users, expired End Dates, and patients with empty Care Teams. Care Team hygiene drifts without active maintenance.
- Use ARC for complex relationships
For patients with blended households, multiple caregivers, or institutional structures, configure the Actionable Relationship Center to visualise the network beyond a flat list.
- Care Team members not removed when they leave the patient's care leak access invisibly. Audit memberships and End-Date stale rows.
- Inconsistent role values break reporting. Standardise the role picklist and enforce through validation rules.
- Flat Care Team lists do not represent complex family or institutional structures. Use ARC for those cases.
- Sharing inherited through Care Team membership is one of several grant channels. Audit total access; Care Team is not the only path.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Care Teams in Health CloudSalesforce Help
- Health Cloud OverviewSalesforce Help
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Care Team.
- Set Up Care TeamsSalesforce Help
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
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