Resource Center

This paper was originally published in the Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Health Team Care Conference, which took place September 19-21, 1984 at the University of Connecticut.  It is reproduced here with the permission of the authors.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an innovative educational consultation procedure designed for one of the interdisciplinary teams providing care to geriatric patients at the Buffalo Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC). The procedure, which we call Focused Team Analysis and Training (FTAT), makes use of on-site videotaping of meetings and questionnaire measures of team properties to diagnose team functioning. The results of qualitative and quantitative analysis of data are presented to team members in a series of workshops. The workshops are designed to enhance members' awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of their team, and to guide members through the process of confronting and resolving problems that impede their functioning. In order to assess the impact of consultation, the procedure also includes before, after and six months follow-up measures of team properties.