The complexity and unpredictability of health care today requires that we take a close look at leadership training and ask: How well are we preparing students and current practitioners to lead interprofessional teams and optimize team performance? Leading interprofessional healthcare teams is a unique and challenging undertaking. It requires navigating across diverse cultures and mediating through age-old hierarchies. Keeping team members focused on common goals and working toward high quality, value and a great patient and provider experience (Quadruple Aim anyone?) is not for the faint of heart.
What are we learning about interprofessional leadership from the growth of the interprofessional education and collaborative practice movement and COVID-19? In this lightning talk, we directly (and quickly) propose: 1) we are learning far more than we are translating into practice and education for students and clinicians; 2) a new training program to prepare leaders of interprofessional teams including competencies and core content, and 3) a strategy for engaging key stakeholders - patients, families, students, clinicians and administrators in the formulation and implementation of new leadership models. Imagine, for example, what a patient or family led team would look like?
This lightning talk will include highlights of our observations and comparison of traditional leadership competencies with the characteristics and requirements for leading interprofessional teams. Examples include how we respond to the demand to fully engage patients and families in teamwork or anticipating new team delivery models and their return on investment. We provide ideas for core content in an interprofessional leadership curriculum which by necessity, must be different and complement professional leadership training. Finally, we will offer suggestions to bring important stakeholders into leadership thinking and performance.
Disclosures:
In accordance with the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education’s Standards for Commercial Support, adopted by the Joint Accreditors for Interprofessional Continuing Education, the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education has a conflict of interest policy that requires that all individuals involved in the development of activity content disclose their relevant financial relationships with commercial interests. All potential conflicts of interest that arise based upon these financial relationships are resolved prior to the educational activity.
Barbara Head, Tara Schapmire, Jill Forcina, Meg Zomorodi, Paige Brown, Kae Livsey, Sarah Smithson, Gerri Lamb, Nina Karamehmedovic, Yvonne Price, Jody Thompson, Margaret Robinson, Denise Bender, Melissa Craft, Angela Harnden
declare no vested interest in or affiliation with any commercial interest offering financial support for this interprofessional continuing education activity, or any affiliation with a commercial interest whose philosophy could potentially bias their presentation.
