AAMC Reporter: August 2006

Teamwork at Heart of New Educational Program

For more information Enhancing Team Effectiveness, 2006-2007 (PDF, 16 pages) Team Works—Engaging Teams of Health Professionals for Organizational Success

A new program created by the AAMC aims to capitalize on a recent surge of interest in collaborative approaches among health science professionals.

Enhancing Team Effectiveness, which has accepted 35 applicants to date, convenes Sept. 15. These clinicians and scientists will explore the theoretical frameworks and practical applications of team development and organizational learning. Participants will also apply the lessons of group work, both within the program and in their home institutions, and then document and report on the effective and ineffective actions that accompany health professions teams.

"My initial interviews of medical school and AAMC leaders revealed a need and desire to have a program where people learn to work together," said Diane Magrane, M.D., the course designer and associate vice president of the AAMC's Division of Medical School Affairs. "There has been a lot of talk lately about increasing team collaboration.We hear more about team science from the National Institutes of Health [through the NIH Roadmap initiative], and the Institute of Medicine has found that better clinical care can be delivered through teams. And in education, the best work in integrated programs often happens in teams."

The program is supported in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

R. Kevin Grigsby, D.S.W., vice dean for faculty and administrative affairs at Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and an Enhancing Team Effectiveness faculty member, said team philosophies are often employed in other professions, with typically positive results.

"In the world of organizations outside academia, teams have been shown to attain higher performance than has been attained using traditional organizational tools such as committees, working groups, or task forces," he said. "There is evidence that traditional approaches to organizational problem solving are ineffective or, at best, less effective in academic health centers. There is growing recognition that new tools, such as teams, are needed to improve organizational performance in academic health centers across missions."

The program is open to any member of a research, education, or clinical team of health professions faculty. Upon registration, participants will employ various tools to gauge their own temperament and learning style, among other attributes, to provide a snapshot of each participant's personal approach to teamwork. Participants meet each other online, prior to convening in a six-day program designed to immerse both the students and the teaching faculty in team-oriented thinking and activities.

Valerie N. Williams, Ph.D., M.P.A., associate vice provost for faculty development and interdisciplinary programs and associate dean for faculty affairs at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, said the time was right for a program such as Enhancing Team Effectiveness, not only from an academic perspective but also for the entire health care system.

"A lot of areas of health care are getting more complex, with a lot of patient situations needing interventions from multiple people and specialties," she said. "By working effectively within a team, you can build a talent pool that can collaboratively address patient care."

Some of the specific skills participants and faculty will work on include peer consultation, collective analysis, improving team communication and overall productivity, recording the results of changes, and implementing recommendations.

By design, a team atmosphere permeates nearly every aspect of the program. Teaching faculty and group leaders are part of the "Discovery Team." Throughout the program, each participant is a member of a "Consultation Team,"made up of fellow program participants, and the "Institution Team" to which one normally belongs.

The lessons for the program are supported by Blackboard, a Web-based system the enables universities, schools, and corporations to host and support classes and other educational programs on the Web. The faculty has designed team journals, group communication tools, and Internet links to enhance team learning.

"Blackboard will benefit us in several ways," Magrane said. "It offers discussion areas where people can express their desires and concerns for the program. There are other areas where people can privately record their own reflections. And it will keep all the participants and faculty together before and after we are physically together. You effectively enter the program before you enter the program location."

According to Magrane, faculty are already enhancing their own collaboration by posting lesson plans online prior to the program to ensure that different lessons complement each other. Of course, program participants will be steeped in teamwork as well.

"The program is deliberately designed to give participants a window into the team experience by becoming members of a new team as part of the exercises," said Williams. "They will be able to constantly examine team dynamics in a structured and reflective way."

Some of the reflection, Williams said, will be focused on individuals and their roles or tendencies within a group dynamic. "Part of being a good team member and a good observer is to know what you're bringing to the table," she said. "This will give people an opportunity to see themselves in a group environment and to learn how they engage their fellow team members. This in turn will help engage the talents of the other people on your team, and how to leverage their assets."

Progressive online conferences and activities advance the work of each person's team activities at home. The program concludes after six months with a two-day colloquium of analysis of team development, outcomes, and lessons learned.

"This is a chance for professionals to work together with each other on a project over the course of six months to a year," Magrane said. "This will send them home with specific actions to work on. Professional development programs often provide instruction but don't make a commitment to improving the institution or supporting individual attendees. This program does."

Williams said these kinds of programs are particularly important in professional communities such as academic medicine, where independent and individual work traditionally has been the order of the day.

"People coming into an academic center don't usually think they are going to be part of a team," she said. "It takes energy to change that, and hopefully that's something we can work on."

Magrane said that of the physician participants, many hold degrees in business, education, and public health. The participant pool also includes representation from social work, pharmacy, nursing, and allied health.

— By Scott Harris

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