Faculty Bibliography

SGEA 2015 CONFERENCE ABSTRACT (EDITED) Evaluating Interprofessional Teamwork During a Large-Scale Simulation Courtney West, Karen Landry, Anna Graham, and Lori Graham. Construct: This study investigated the multidimensional measurement of interprofessional (IPE) teamwork as part of large-scale simulation training. BACKGROUND: Healthcare team function has a direct impact on patient safety and quality of care. However, IPE team training has not been the norm. Recognizing the importance of developing team-based collaborative care, our College of Nursing implemented an IPE simulation activity called Disaster Day and invited other professions to participate. The exercise consists of two sessions: one in the morning and another in the afternoon. The disaster scenario is announced just prior to each session, which consists of team building, a 90-minute simulation, and debriefing. Approximately 300 Nursing, Medicine, Pharmacy, Emergency Medical Technicians, and Radiology students and over 500 standardized and volunteer patients participated in the Disaster Day event. To improve student learning outcomes, we created 3 competency-based instruments to evaluate collaborative practice in multidimensional fashion during this exercise. APPROACH: A 20-item IPE Team Observation Instrument designed to assess interprofessional team's attainment of Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) competencies was completed by 20 faculty and staff observing the Disaster Day simulation. One hundred sixty-six standardized patients completed a 10-item Standardized Patient IPE Team Evaluation Instrument developed from the IPEC competencies and adapted items from the 2014 Henry et al. PIVOT Questionnaire. This instrument assessed the standardized or volunteer patient's perception of the team's collaborative performance. A 29-item IPE Team's Perception of Collaborative Care Questionnaire, also created from the IPEC competencies and divided into 5 categories of Values/Ethics, Roles and Responsibilities, Communication, Teamwork, and Self-Evaluation, was completed by 188 students including 99 from Nursing, 43 from Medicine, 6 from Pharmacy, and 40 participants who belonged to more than one component, were students at another institution, or did not indicate their institution. The team instrument was designed to assess each team member's perception of how well the team and him- or herself met the competencies. Five of the items on the team perceptions questionnaire mirrored items on the standardized patient evaluation: demonstrated leadership practices that led to effective teamwork, discussed care and decisions about that care with patient, described roles and responsibilities clearly, worked well together to coordinate care, and good/effective communication. RESULTS: Internal consistency reliability of the IPE Team Observation Instrument was 0.80. In 18 of the 20 items, more than 50% of observers indicated the item was demonstrated. Of those, 6 of the items were observed by 50% to 75% of the observers, and the remaining 12 were observed by more than 80% of the observers. Internal consistency reliability of the IPE Team's Perception of Collaborative Care Instrument was 0.95. The mean response score-1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree)-was calculated for each section of the instrument. The overall mean score was 3.57 (SD = .11). Internal consistency reliability of the Standardized Patient IPE Team Evaluation Instrument was 0.87. The overall mean score was 3.28 (SD = .17). The ratings for the 5 items shared by the standardized patient and team perception instruments were compared using independent sample t tests. Statistically significant differences (p < .05) were present in each case, with the students rating themselves higher on average than the standardized patients did (mean differences between 0.2 and 0.6 on a scale of 1-4). CONCLUSIONS: Multidimensional, competency-based instruments appear to provide a robust view of IPE teamwork; however, challenges remain. Due to the large scale of the simulation exercise, observation-based assessment did not function as well as self- and standardized patient-based assessment. To promote greater variation in observer assessments during future Disaster Day simulations, we plan to adjust the rating scale from "not observed," "observed," and "not applicable" to a 4-point scale and reexamine interrater reliability.

BACKGROUND: Obesity affects 37 % of patients at Veterans Health Administration (VHA) medical centers. The VHA offers an intensive weight management program (MOVE!) but less than 10 % of eligible patients ever attend. However, VHA patients see their primary care provider about 3.6 times per year, supporting the development of primary care-based weight management interventions. To address gaps in the literature regarding Veterans' experiences with weight management and determine whether and how to develop a primary care-based weight management intervention to both improve obesity counseling and increase attendance to MOVE!, we conducted a qualitative study to assess: 1) Veterans' personal experiences with healthy weight-related behavior change (including barriers and facilitators to behavior change and experiences with primary care providers, staff, and the MOVE! program), and 2) potential new approaches to improve weight management within primary care at the VHA including goal setting and technology. METHODS: Overweight/obese VHA patients (aged 18-75, BMI greater than 30 or greater than 25 with at least 1 co-morbidity) were recruited for focus group sessions stratified by gender, MOVE! referral, and attendance. Each session was facilitated by a trained moderator, audio-recorded, and professionally transcribed. Using an iterative coding approach, two coders separately reviewed and coded transcripts, and met frequently to negotiate codes and synthesize emerging themes. RESULTS: Of 161 eligible patients, 54 attended one of 6 focus groups (2 female, 4 male, 9-11 participants per session): 63 % were male, 46 % identified as African-American, 32 % White/Caucasian, 74 % were college-educated or higher, and 61 % reported having attended MOVE!. We identified two major themes: Impact of Military Service and Promotion and Sustainability of Healthy Behaviors. After service in a highly structured military environment, Veterans had difficulty maintaining weight on their own. They perceived physical activity as having more impact than diet, but chronic pain was a barrier. We identified individual/interpersonal-, community/environment-, and healthcare system-related factors affecting healthy behaviors. We also received input about Veteran's preferences and experiences with technology and setting health goals. CONCLUSIONS: Unique factors influence weight management in Veterans. Findings will inform development of a technology-assisted weight management intervention with tailored counseling and goal-setting within primary care at the VHA.

OBJECTIVE: To conduct a systematic literature review appraising the effects of interventions to improve patient-practitioner communication on cardiovascular-related clinical outcomes. METHODS: Databases were searched up to March 27, 2013 to identify eligible studies that included interventions to improve patient and/or practitioner communication skills and assessment of a cardiovascular-related clinical outcome in adults >/=18 years of age. RESULTS: Fifteen papers were reviewed: the primary focus in seven studies was the patient; seven included a practitioner-focused intervention and one targeted both. Two patient-focused and two practitioner-focused studies demonstrated a beneficial effect of the intervention compared to a control group. Patient-focused studies were designed to improve patients' information-seeking and question-asking skills with their practitioner. Practitioner-focused studies were designed to either improve practitioner's general patient-centered communication or risk communication skills. CONCLUSION: Few interventions targeting patient-practitioner communication have assessed the impact on cardiovascular-related clinical outcomes, limiting the ability to determine effectiveness. Additional rigorous research supported by theoretical frameworks and validated measurement is needed to understand the potential of patient-practitioner communication to improve cardiovascular-related clinical outcomes. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Investments in communication skills trainings in medical education and practice are needed in order to attain the full potential of patient-centered care on cardiovascular-related clinical outcomes.

OBJECTIVES: Most medical procedures have a time element. It is uncommon, however, to explicitly use chronometry, the measurement of time, in the learning of these procedures. This study considered whether instructional designs that include chronometry could improve deliberate practice and be used in meaningful formative assessments. METHODS: A selective review of the medical education literature was undertaken to identify how chronometry was used in a broad sampling of medical education research in the learning of medical procedures. We identified prior publications in which time measurement was used either directly as a pedagogic intervention or as an assessment method in a medical school programme. RESULTS: Our review suggests a number of desirable features of chronometry. For the individual learner, procedural time measurements can demonstrate both improving ability and increasing consistency. Chronometry can enhance instructional designs involving deliberate practice by facilitating overlearning (i.e. learning that goes beyond minimum competence), increasing the challenge level and enhancing self-regulation of learning (e.g. self-competition). Breaking down chronometric data into meaningful interval or split times might further inform instructional designs. CONCLUSIONS: Chronometry has the potential to contribute to instructional designs and assessment methods in medical procedures training. However, more research is needed to elucidate its full potential and describe possible negative consequences of this widely available but underutilised educational tool.

BACKGROUND: While unannounced standardized patients (USPs) have been used to assess physicians' clinical skills in the ambulatory setting, they can also provide valuable information on patients' experience of the health care setting beyond the physician encounter. This paper explores the use of USPs as a methodology for evaluating patient-centered care in the health care system. METHODS: USPs were trained to complete a behaviorally-anchored assessment of core dimensions of patient-centered care delivered within the clinical microsystem, including: 1) Medical assistants' safe practices, quality of care, and responsiveness to patients; 2) ease of clinic navigation; and 3) the patient-centeredness of care provided by the physician. Descriptive data is provided on these three levels of patient-centeredness within the targeted clinical microsystem. Chi-square analyses were used to signal whether variations by teams within the clinical microsystem were likely to be due to chance or might reflect true differences in patient-centeredness of specific teams. RESULTS: Sixty USP visits to 11 Primary Care teams were performed over an eight-month period (mean 5 visits/team; range 2-8). No medical assistants reported detecting an USP during the study period. USPs found the clinic easy to navigate and that teams were functioning well in 60% of visits. In 30% to 47% of visits, the physicians could have been more patient-centered. Medical assistants' patient safety measures were poor: patient identity was confirmed in only 5% of visits and no USPs observed medical assistants wash their hands. Quality of care was relatively high for vital signs (e.g. blood pressure, weight and height), but low for depression screening, occurring in only 15% of visits. In most visits, medical assistants greeted the patient in a timely fashion but took time to fully explain matters in less than half of the visits and rarely introduced themselves. Physicians tried to help patients navigate the system in 62% of visits. CONCLUSIONS: USP assessment captured actionable, critical, behaviorally-specific information on team and system performance in an urban community clinic. This methodology provides unique insight into the patient-centeredness and quality of care in medical settings.

CONTEXT: Conducting research in real life settings (effectiveness studies) can introduce many confounding factors. Efficacy studies seek to control for researcher bias and data quality rather than considering how the efficacy of an intervention is changed by the contexts in which it is used. Relatively little is known about the impact of context on educational interventions, in particular on multimedia learning. METHODS: An effectiveness study to understand implementation variance of online educational modules in surgery clerkships was conducted in six US medical schools participating in an efficacy trial of different multimedia designs. Student and teacher experiences were captured through focus groups and one-to-one interviews with trial participants and their teachers. Audio-recordings of these sessions were transcribed and analysed using grounded theory techniques. RESULTS: Differences were identified in student and teacher perceptions of how the educational intervention had been implemented and how its uptake had been influenced by context-dependent factors: (i) the intervention was implemented in different ways to suit different educational contexts and this influenced how students and teachers responded to it; (ii) the ways students and teachers interacted with, and behaved around, the intervention influenced its uptake; (iii) the way the intervention was perceived by students and teachers influenced its uptake; and (iv) the medium and design of the intervention had a directing influence on its uptake. CONCLUSIONS: It was observed that each institutional context formed a complex educational ecology. The intervention became interwoven with different educational ecologies so that it could no longer be considered a stable variable across the study. We suggest that researchers should conduct implementation-profiling studies in advance of any intervention-based research to account for the constructing nature of educational ecologies on their interventions and in doing so to more clearly differentiate between efficacy and effectiveness studies.