Teaching Health Center: Team-Based Care Curriculum

Northwestern University’s School of Medicine offers a Family Medicine Residency Program based on a team-based care curriculum that specifically addresses educational gaps in team-based care and team management strategies.  There is a growing need to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and team management training for the next generation of primary care leaders and administrators. As one of the inaugural 11 Federal Teaching Health Centers, this training program has a unique focus in training primary care physicians to develop leadership roles in a community-based primary care venue. One of its primary goals is to train the next generation of primary care providers – including physicians, nurses, medical assistants, and behavioral health providers, in team communication and team-based care.

Specifically, this program has incorporated a team-based educational curriculum and re-designed its clinical practice model into a multidisciplinary team of providers (attending physicians, residents, mid-level providers, nurses, medical assistants, pharmacists, case-managers, health care educators, behavioral health, and other ancillary personnel). Leadership roles have been organized within the team, including training all residents in chief administrative roles, communication skills among the team, and help members work at their optimal levels of training.

This program offers a developmental curriculum designed to enhance team-based care by addressing knowledge, skills, and professional attitudes in the following areas:

1. Defining and describing team-based care models such as patient-centered medical homes (PCMH) and Accountable Care Organizations (ACO)
2. Assessing and understanding  individual and team members’ styles, roles and responsibilities
3. Developing communication pathways (e.g., huddles, meetings, learning lunches)
4. Implementing Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles, shared care plans, and complexity care for quality improvement processes (i.e., cycle time and health outcomes)
5. Developing conflict resolution, problem solving and accountability team processes and strategies

Participants include resident physicians (lead), attending physicians, nurses, medical assistants, pharmacists, case-managers, health care educators, behavioral health and other ancillary personnel.

Upon utilizing these resources, participants will be able to:

1. Create a primary care interdisciplinary team-based curriculum that is integrated into a primary care residency program
2. Apply a team-based model approach within a community-based primary care health center and residency training program
3. Identify opportunities and challenges with the curriculum through a systematic process-oriented evaluation
4. Gain practical knowledge and skills in interdisciplinary collaborative teaching and patient care

The curriculum can be adapted to a diverse group of healthcare settings and is not limited to primary care family medicine clinical practices.  While designed for primary care team members and issues, this program’s foundational structure can be adapted to other healthcare teams in outpatient (e.g., internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology) and inpatient settings.