In this narrative review, the authors contrast approaches to teamwork in healthcare with current concepts in safety science. The authors encourage moving past a ‘reductionist’ (reducible through information) approach to teamwork training and discuss the potential benefit from a more interdisciplinary approach towards teamwork and safety science research by integrating medical and social science disciplines, moving towards a ‘macro’ view of health care delivery, and evaluating how socioeconomic factors influence both healthcare systems and individual practitioners.