Resource Center

External research funding provides the core support for a medical center's research enterprise, and is a major or sole criterion for comparing and ranking institutions. Most grant programs are sufficiently competitive that awards are not granted without the availability of preliminary data. Therefore, institutions may find it necessary to supplement external research funds, particularly as matching funds or as seed funds.

The crisis of the rising cost of health care in the United States is stimulating major changes in the way care is being delivered. New models such as patient-centered medical homes and accountable care organizations are being developed with the expectation that health care professionals will address and improve the health of populations. Electronic health records and interprofessional teams will be critical to achieving the goal of better health.

With the growth of interprofessional education (IPE) and practice in health professional schools, faculty members are being asked to assume new roles in leading or delivering interprofessional curriculum. Many existing faculty members feel ill-prepared to face the challenges of this curricular innovation. From 2012–2013, University of Missouri – Columbia and University of Washington partnered with six additional academic health centers to pilot a faculty development course to prepare faculty leaders for IPE.

Interprofessional teamwork is an essential and expanding form of health care practice. While moral issues arising in teamwork relative to the patient have been explored, the analysis of ethical issues regarding the function of the team itself is limited. This paper develops a conceptual framework for organizing and analyzing the different types of ethical issues in interprofessional teamwork. This framework is a matrix that maps the elements of principles, structures, and processes against individual, team, and organizational levels.

Each of the fields of geriatrics and interdisciplinary practice intensifies the usefulness and effectiveness of the other. Combining geriatrics and interdisciplinary practice also magnifies the complexity of two singularly complex fields. However, the subtle reasons for their complexity may escape the understanding of clinicians, educators, policy makers, and administrators. Attempting to treat older patients who have complex problems while ignoring common principles of geriatrics and teamwork can cause a kind of double jeopardy.

Relationship Awareness Theory is based on the premise that there is a purpose or motive behind all behavior. The Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) was designed to help individuals identify their motives in relating to others under two kinds of conditions; when everything is going well in their relationships and when they are in conflict with others. The authors administered the SDI over a ten year period to 516 health professionals and advanced level trainees who worked or trained on interdisciplinary healthcare teams.

The practice of geriatrics frequently involves the services of an interdisciplinary team. Behavior of team members exists on a functional continuum, from adaptive to maladaptive. Health professionals readily identify maladaptive behaviors in patients, but may ignore or avoid such behavior in colleagues. Ignoring these behaviors precludes influencing the affected team member to seek help, and can cause members to leave the team. Team members with maladaptive behavior, and persons colluding with this behavior, can negatively influence care.

This pilot study attempted to uncover similarities and differences in perceptions of health care teams by the professionals who work in them and are affected by them. This study used a convenience sample of 125 health professionals from 14 disciplines to explore the types of general metaphors and sports metaphors that they apply to health care teams. Data were analyzed by gender, type of metaphor, and stated reasons for choosing a particular metaphor. Fifteen themes emerged from the analysis.

Interdisciplinary health care teams (IHTs) are essential for the delivery of health care to frail elderly persons. Teaching professionals how to function in health care teams is difficult. Educators often use linear group development theories for teaching about IHTs. However, distinguishing features of the health care field, such as the diversity of the health professions, the ongoing nature of IHTs, high turnover in health care facilities, and incongruous development of the team and its members, may render linear group theories insufficient as models for IHTs.

Business settings, which increasingly promote the value of teamwork and self‐directed work teams (SDWTs), offer a popular model for team development training. SDWTs are formal, permanent organizational structures or units empowered to manage themselves and the work they do. SDWTs in business settings have many of the same features as, face similar issues and problems to, and have worked out solutions to many issues that also apply to interdisciplinary health care teams (IHTs).