Health systems science education: The new post-Flexner professionalism for the 21st century.

The foundations of medical education have drawn from the Flexner Report to prepare students for practice for over a century. These recommendations relied, however, upon a limited set of competencies and a relatively narrow view of the physician's role. There have been increasing calls and recommendations to expand those competencies and the professional identity of the physician to better meet the current and future needs of patients, health systems, and society. We propose a framework for the twenty-first century physician that includes an expectation of new competency in health systems science (HSS), creating 'system citizens' who are effective stewards of the health care system. Experiential educational strategies, in addition to knowledge-centered learning, are critically important for students to develop their professional identity as system citizens working alongside interprofessional colleagues. Challenges to HSS adoption range from competing priorities for learners, to the need for faculty development, to the necessity for buy-in by medical schools and their associated health care systems. Ultimately, success will depend on our ability to articulate, encourage, support, and evaluate system citizenship and its impact on health care and health care systems.

General Internists as Change Agents: Opportunities and Barriers to Leadership in Health Systems and Medical Education Transformation.

Health systems are increasingly engaging in mission development around the quadruple aim of patient experience of care, population health, cost of care, and work-life balance of clinicians. This integrated approach is closely aligned with the education principles and competencies of health systems science (HSS), which includes population health, high-value care, leadership, teamwork, collaboration, and systems thinking. Influenced by health outcomes research, the systems-based practice competency, and the Clinical Learning Environment Review, many medical schools and residency programs are taking on the challenge of comprehensively incorporating these HSS competencies into the education agenda. General internal medicine physicians, inclusive of hospitalists, geriatricians, and palliative and primary care physicians, are at the frontlines of this transformation and uniquely positioned to contribute to and lead health system transformation, role model HSS competencies for trainees, and facilitate the education of a new workforce equipped with HSS skills to accelerate change in healthcare. Although GIM faculty are positioned to be early adopters and leaders in evolving systems of care and education, professional development and changes with academic health systems are required. This Perspective article explores the conceptualization and opportunities to effectively link GIM with healthcare and medical education transformation.

Unpacking Medical Students' Mixed Engagement in Health Systems Science Education.

Phenomenon: Medical education is better aligning with the needs of health systems. Health systems science competencies, such as high-value care, population health, and systems thinking, are increasingly being integrated into curricula, but not without challenges. One challenge is mixed receptivity by students, the underlying reasons of which have not been extensively explored. In this qualitative study, we explored the research question: "How do students perceive health systems science curricula across all four years, and how do such perceptions inform the reasons for mixed quality ratings?" Approach: Following large-scale health systems science curricular changes in their medical school, we used students' open-ended comments obtained from course evaluations related to 1st-, 2nd-, and 4th-year courses and performed a qualitative thematic analysis to explore students' perceptions. We identified themes, synthesized findings into a conceptual figure, and agreed upon results and quotations. Findings: Five themes were identified: (1) perceived importance and relevance of health systems science education, (2) tension between traditional and evolving health systems science-related professional identity, (3) dissatisfaction with redundancy of topics, (4) competition with basic and clinical science curricula, and, (5) preference for discrete, usable, testable facts over complexity and uncertainty. The relationship between themes is described along a continuum of competing agendas between students' traditional mindset (which focuses on basic/clinical science) and an emerging medical education approach (which focuses on basic, clinical, and health systems science). Insights: Health systems science education can be viewed by learners as peripheral to their future practice and not aligned with a professional identity that places emphasis on basic and clinical science topics. For some students, this traditional identity limits engagement in health systems science curricula. If health systems science is to achieve its full potential in medical education, further work is required to explore the adoption of new perspectives by students and create activities to accelerate the process.

Developing a Professional Identity as a Change Agent Early in Medical School: the Students' Voice.

As health systems are adapting to increased accountability for quality outcomes, population health, and collaborative care, medical schools are adapting curricula to better prepare physicians to function in health systems. Two components of this educational transformation are (1) increasing physician competence in Health Systems Science, including quality, population health, social determinants of health, and interprofessional collaboration, and (2) providing roles for students to act as change agents while adding value to the health system. The authors, three medical students who served as patient navigators during their first year of medical school, provide perspectives regarding their clinical systems learning roles, which spanned the levels of individual patients, clinic operations, and the health system. Specifically, authors describe working with a struggling patient, developing an intake assessment tool to aid clinical operations, and creating a directory of community-based resources. Authors discuss educational benefits, including understanding social determinants of health, barriers to care, and inefficiencies within the healthcare system. Several challenges are explored, including the importance of student initiative and concerns about traditional curricular outcomes. Through early experiences, students describe developing a professional identity as a change agent, while also learning key competencies required for clinical practice.

Imprinting on Clinical Rotations: Multisite Survey of High- and Low-Value Medical Student Behaviors and Relationship with Healthcare Intensity.

BACKGROUND: Physician behaviors are important to high-value care, and the learning environment medical students encounter on clinical clerkships may imprint their developing practice patterns. OBJECTIVES: To explore potential imprinting on clinical rotations by (a) describing high- and low-value behaviors among medical students and (b) examining relationships with regional healthcare intensity (HCI). DESIGN: Multisite cross-sectional survey PARTICIPANTS: Third- and fourth-year students at nine US medical schools MAIN MEASURES: Survey items measured high-value (n = 10) and low-value (n = 9) student behaviors. Regional HCI was measured using Dartmouth Atlas End-of-Life Chronic Illness Care data (ratio of physician visits per decedent compared with the US average, hospital care intensity index, ratio of medical specialty to primary care physician visits per decedent). Associations between regional HCI and student behaviors were examined using unadjusted and adjusted (controlling for age, sex, and year in school) logistic regression analyses, using median item ratings to summarize reported engagement in high- and low-value behaviors. KEY RESULTS: Of 2623 students invited, 1304 (50%) responded. Many reported trying to determine healthcare costs (1085/1234, 88%), but only 45% (571/1257) reported including cost details in case presentations. Students acknowledged suggesting tests solely to anticipate what their supervisor would want (1143/1220, 94%), show off their ability to generate a broad differential diagnosis (1072/1218, 88%), satisfy curiosity (958/1217, 79%), protect the team from liability (938/1215, 77%), and build clinical experience (533/1217, 44%). Students in higher intensity regions reported significantly more low-value behaviors: each one-unit increase in the ratio of physician visits per decedent increased the odds of reporting low-value behaviors by 20% (OR 1.20, 95% CI 1.04-1.38; P = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Third- and fourth-year medical students report engaging in both high- and low-value behaviors, which are related to regional HCI. This underscores the importance of the clinical learning environment and suggests imprinting is already underway during medical school.

A practical guide for implementing and maintaining value-added clinical systems learning roles for medical students using a diffusion of innovations framework.

After emphasizing biomedical and clinical sciences for over a century, US medical schools are expanding experiential roles that allow students to learn about health care delivery while also adding value to patient care. After developing a program where all 1st-year medical students are integrated into interprofessional care teams to contribute to patient care, authors use a diffusion of innovations framework to explore and identify barriers, facilitators, and best practices for implementing value-added clinical systems learning roles. In 2016, authors conducted 32 clinical-site observations, 29 1:1 interviews with mentors, and four student focus-group interviews. Data were transcribed verbatim, and a thematic analysis was used to identify themes. Authors discussed drafts of the categorization scheme, and agreed upon results and quotations. Of 36 sites implementing the program, 17 (47%) remained, 8 (22%) significantly modified, and 11 (31%) withdrew from the program. Identified strategies for implementing value-added roles included: student education, patient characteristics, patient selection methods, activities performed, and resources. Six themes influencing program implementation and maintenance included: (1) educational benefit, (2) value added to patient care from student work, (3) mentor time and site capacity, (4) student engagement, (5) working relationship between school, site, and students, and, (6) students' continuity at the site. Health systems science is an emerging focus for medical schools, and educators are challenged to design practice-based roles that enhance education and add value to patient care. Health professions' schools implementing value-added roles will need to invest resources and strategize about best-practice strategies to guide efforts.

Educating patient-centered, systems-aware physicians: a qualitative analysis of medical student perceptions of value-added clinical systems learning roles.

BACKGROUND: Medical schools have a critical need to develop roles for students that are "value-added," defined as "…experiential roles that can positively impact health outcomes while also enhancing student knowledge, attitudes, and skills in Clinical or Health Systems Science." Following implementation of value-added clinical systems learning roles for all first-year students, authors investigated student perceptions of the educational value from these patient-centered experiences. METHODS: Between 2014 and 16, authors collected logs from students following their working with patients; authors also performed six, 1:1 student interviews, which were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Authors used thematic analysis to explore students' perceptions of the experience and educational benefits from these roles. Authors identified themes, and agreed upon results and quotations. RESULTS: A total of 792 logs from 363 patients and six interviews were completed and analyzed. Students reported six educational benefits of performing value-added clinical systems learning roles in the health system, including enhanced understanding of and appreciation for a patient's perspective on health care and his/her health, barriers and social determinants of health, health care systems and delivery, interprofessional collaboration and teamwork, clinical medicine, and approach to communicating with patients. CONCLUSIONS: Students' reported educational benefits from value-added clinical systems learning roles span several learning areas that align with clinical and Health Systems Science, i.e. the needs of future physicians. These roles have the potential to shift learning from the physician-centric identity to one more fully aligned with patient-centered, team-based providers, while also potentially improving health today.

Attitudes toward cost-conscious care among U.S. physicians and medical students: analysis of national cross-sectional survey data by age and stage of training.

BACKGROUND: The success of initiatives intended to increase the value of health care depends, in part, on the degree to which cost-conscious care is endorsed by current and future physicians. This study aimed to first analyze attitudes of U.S. physicians by age and then compare the attitudes of physicians and medical students. METHODS: A paper survey was mailed in mid-2012 to 3897 practicing physicians randomly selected from the American Medical Association Masterfile. An electronic survey was sent in early 2015 to all 5,992 students at 10 U.S. medical schools. Survey items measured attitudes toward cost-conscious care and perceived responsibility for reducing healthcare costs. Physician responses were first compared across age groups (30-40 years, 41-50 years, 51-60 years, and > 60 years) and then compared to student responses using Chi square tests and logistic regression analyses (controlling for sex). RESULTS: A total of 2,556 physicians (65%) and 3395 students (57%) responded. Physician attitudes generally did not differ by age, but differed significantly from those of students. Specifically, students were more likely than physicians to agree that cost to society should be important in treatment decisions (p < 0.001) and that physicians should sometimes deny beneficial but costly services (p < 0.001). Students were less likely to agree that it is unfair to ask physicians to be cost-conscious while prioritizing patient welfare (p < 0.001). Compared to physicians, students assigned more responsibility for reducing healthcare costs to hospitals and health systems (p < 0.001) and less responsibility to lawyers (p < 0.001) and patients (p < 0.001). Nearly all significant differences persisted after controlling for sex and when only the youngest physicians were compared to students. CONCLUSIONS: Physician attitudes toward cost-conscious care are similar across age groups. However, physician attitudes differ significantly from medical students, even among the youngest physicians most proximate to students in age. Medical student responses suggest they are more accepting of cost-conscious care than physicians and attribute more responsibility for reducing costs to organizations and systems rather than individuals. This may be due to the combined effects of generational differences, new medical school curricula, students' relative inexperience providing cost-conscious care within complex healthcare systems, and the rapidly evolving U.S. healthcare system.

Exploring challenges in the patient's discharge process from the internal medicine service: A qualitative study of patients' and providers' perceptions.

In hospital-based medicine units, patients have a wide range of complex medical conditions, requiring timely and accurate communication between multiple interprofessional providers at the time of discharge. Limited work has investigated the challenges in interprofessional collaboration and communication during the patient discharge process. In this study, authors qualitatively assessed the experiences of internal medicine providers and patients about roles, challenges, and potential solutions in the discharge process, with a phenomenological focus on the process of collaboration. Authors conducted interviews with 87 providers and patients-41 providers in eight focus-groups, 39 providers in individual interviews, and seven individual patient interviews. Provider roles included physicians, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, care coordinators, and social workers. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim, followed by iterative review of transcripts using qualitative coding and content analysis. Participants identified several barriers related to interprofessional collaboration during the discharge process, including systems insufficiencies (e.g., medication reconciliation process, staffing challenges); lack of understanding others' roles (e.g., unclear which provider should be completing the discharge summary); information-communication breakdowns (e.g., inaccurate information communicated to the primary medical team); patient issues (e.g., patient preferences misaligned with recommendations); and poor collaboration processes (e.g., lack of structured interprofessional rounds). These results provide context for targeting improvement in interprofessional collaboration in medicine units during patient discharges. Implementing changes in care delivery processes may increase potential for accurate and timely coordination, thereby improving the quality of care transitions.

Internal Medicine Residents' Perceived Responsibility for Patients at Hospital Discharge: A National Survey.

BACKGROUND: Medical residents are routinely entrusted with transitions of care, yet little is known about the duration or content of their perceived responsibility for patients they discharge from the hospital. OBJECTIVE: To examine the duration and content of internal medicine residents' perceived responsibility for patients they discharge from the hospital. The secondary objective was to determine whether specific individual experiences and characteristics correlate with perceived responsibility. DESIGN: Multi-site, cross-sectional 24-question survey delivered via email or paper-based form. PARTICIPANTS: Internal medicine residents (post-graduate years 1-3) at nine university and community-based internal medicine training programs in the United States. MAIN MEASURES: Perceived responsibility for patients after discharge as measured by a previously developed single-item tool for duration of responsibility and novel domain-specific questions assessing attitudes towards specific transition of care behaviors. KEY RESULTS: Of 817 residents surveyed, 469 responded (57.4 %). One quarter of residents (26.1 %) indicated that their responsibility for patients ended at discharge, while 19.3 % reported perceived responsibility extending beyond 2 weeks. Perceived duration of responsibility did not correlate with level of training (P = 0.57), program type (P = 0.28), career path (P = 0.12), or presence of burnout (P = 0.59). The majority of residents indicated they were responsible for six of eight transitional care tasks (85.1-99.3 % strongly agree or agree). Approximately half of residents (57 %) indicated that it was their responsibility to directly contact patients' primary care providers at discharge. and 21.6 % indicated that it was their responsibility to ensure that patients attended their follow-up appointments. CONCLUSIONS: Internal medicine residents demonstrate variability in perceived duration of responsibility for recently discharged patients. Neither the duration nor the content of residents' perceived responsibility was consistently associated with level of training, program type, career path, or burnout, suggesting there may be unmeasured factors such as professional role modeling that shape these perceptions.

Exploring challenges in implementing a health systems science curriculum: a qualitative analysis of student perceptions.

OBJECTIVES: Although a critical component of educational reform involves the inclusion of knowledge of and skills in health systems science (HSS) (including population health, health system improvement and high-value care) many undergraduate medical education programmes focus primarily on traditional basic and clinical sciences. In this study, we investigated students' perceptions of the barriers to, challenges involved in and benefits of the implementation of a HSS curriculum. METHODS: In 2014, we conducted 12 focus groups with 50 medical students across all years of medical school. Group interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. We used thematic analysis to explore students' perceptions of a planned HSS curriculum, which was to include both a classroom-based course and an experiential component. We then identified themes and challenges from the students' perspective and agreed upon results and quotations. RESULTS: Students identified four barrier-related themes, including (i) medical-board licensing examinations foster a view of basic science as 'core', (ii) systems concepts are important but not essential, (iii) students lack sufficient knowledge and skills to perform systems roles and (iv) the culture of medical education and clinical systems does not support systems education. Students also identified several perceived benefits of a systems curriculum, including acquisition of new knowledge and skills, enhanced understanding of patients' perspectives and improved learning through experiential roles. The major unifying challenge related to students' competing priorities; one to perform well in examinations and match into preferred residencies, and another to develop systems-based skills. CONCLUSIONS: Students' intrinsic desire to be the best physician possible is at odds with board examinations and desired residency placements. As a result, HSS is viewed as peripheral and non-essential, greatly limiting student engagement. New perspectives are needed to effectively address this challenge.

Interprofessional collaborative care characteristics and the occurrence of bedside interprofessional rounds: a cross-sectional analysis.

BACKGROUND: Interprofessional collaboration improves the quality of medical care, but integration into inpatient workflow has been limited. Identification of systems-based factors promoting or diminishing bedside interprofessional rounds (BIR), one method of interprofessional collaboration, is critical for potential improvements in collaboration in hospital settings. The objective of this study was to determine whether the percentage of bedside interprofessional rounds in 18 hospital-based clinical units is attributable to spatial, staffing, patient, or nursing perception characteristics. METHODS: A prospective, cross-sectional assessment of data obtained from nursing audits in one large academic medical center on a sampling of hospitalized pediatric and adult patients in 18 units from November 2012 to October 2013 was performed. The primary outcome was the percentage of bedside interprofessional rounds, defined as encounters including one attending-level physician and a nurse discussing the case at the patient's bedside. Logistic regression models were constructed with four covariate domains: (1) spatial characteristics (unit type, bed number, square feet per bed), (2) staffing characteristics (nurse-to-patient ratios, admitting services to unit), (3) patient-level characteristics (length of stay, severity of illness), and (4) nursing perceptions of collegiality, staffing, and use of rounding scripts. RESULTS: Of 29,173 patients assessed during 1241 audited unit-days, 21,493 patients received BIR (74 %, range 35-97 %). Factors independently associated with increased occurrence of bedside interprofessional rounds were: intensive care unit (odds ratio 9.63, [CI 5.30-17.42]), intermediate care unit (odds ratio 2.84, [CI 1.37-5.87]), hospital length of stay 5-7 days (odds ratio 1.89, [CI, 1.05-3.38]) and >7 days (odds ratio 2.27, [CI, 1.28-4.02]), use of rounding script (odds ratio 2.20, [CI 1.15-4.23]), and perceived provider/leadership support (odds ratio 3.25, [CI 1.83-5.77]). CONCLUSIONS: Variation of bedside interprofessional rounds was more attributable to unit type and perceived support rather than spatial or relationship characteristics amongst providers. Strategies for transforming the value of hospital care may require a reconfiguration of care delivery toward more integrated practice units.

Interprofessional Communication Patterns During Patient Discharges: A Social Network Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Optimal care delivery requires timely, efficient, and accurate communication among numerous providers and their patients, especially during hospital discharge. Little is known about communication patterns during this process. OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to assess the frequency and patterns of communication between patients and providers during patient discharges from a hospital-based medicine unit. DESIGN AND APPROACH: On the day of the patient's discharge, the patient and all healthcare providers involved in the discharge were interviewed using structured questions related to information exchange during the discharge process. Each interview identified the frequency and method of communication between participants, including synchronous (e.g., face-to-face) and asynchronous (e.g., through electronic medical record) routes. Communication patterns were visually diagramed using social network analysis. PARTICIPANTS: Forty-six patients were screened for inclusion in the network analysis. Of those, seven patients who were fully oriented and able to complete an interview and all providers who participated in their care during the discharge were selected for inclusion in the analysis. In all, 72 healthcare professionals contributing to the discharge process were interviewed, including physicians, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, care coordinators, social workers, and nutritionists. KEY RESULTS: Patients' mean age was 63, length-of-stay was 7.8 days, and most (86 %) were discharged to home. On average, 11 roles were involved with each discharge. The majority of communication was synchronous (562 events vs. 469 asynchronous events, p = 0.004). Most communication events occurred between the primary nurse and patient and the care coordinator and primary nurse (mean 3.9 and 2.3 events/discharge, respectively). Participants identified intern physicians as most important in the discharge process, followed by primary nurses and care coordinators. CONCLUSIONS: In patients being discharged from the medicine service, communication was more frequently synchronous, and occurred between intern physicians, primary nurses, and patients. Potential improvements in coordinating patients' discharges are possible by reorganizing systems to optimize efficient communication.

Impact of an Overnight Internal Medicine Academic Hospitalist Program on Patient Outcomes.

BACKGROUND: Many academic hospitals have implemented overnight hospitalists to supervise house staff and improve outcomes, but few studies have described the impact of this role. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of an overnight academic hospitalist program on patient-level outcomes. Secondary objectives were to describe the program's revenue generation and work tasks. DESIGN: Retrospective interrupted time-series analysis of patients admitted to the medicine service before and after implementation of the program. PARTICIPANTS: All patients aged 18 and older admitted to the acute or intermediate care units between 7:00 p.m. and 6:59 a.m. during the period before (April 2011-August 2012) and after (September 2012-April 2014) program implementation. INTERVENTION: An on-site attending-level physician directly supervising medicine house staff overnight, providing clinical care during high-volume periods, and ensuring safe handoffs to daytime providers. MAIN MEASURES: Primary outcomes included in-hospital mortality, 30-day hospital readmissions, length of stay, and upgrades in care on the night of admission and during hospitalization. Multivariable models estimated the effect on outcomes after adjusting for secular trends. Revenue generation and work tasks are reported descriptively. KEY RESULTS: During the study period, 6484 patients were admitted to the medicine service: 2722 (42 %) before and 3762 (58 %) after implementation. No differences were found in mortality (1.1 % vs. 0.9 %, p=0.38), 30-day readmissions (14.8 % vs. 15.6 %, p=0.39), mean length of stay (3.09 vs. 3.08 days, p=0.86), or upgrades to intensive care on the night of admission (0.4 % vs. 0.7 %, p=0.11) or during hospitalization (3.5 % vs. 4.2 %, p=0.20). During the first year, hospitalists billed 1209 patient encounters (3.3/shift) and 63 procedures (0.2/shift), and supervised 1939 patient admissions (6.12/shift) while supervising house staff 3-h/shifts. CONCLUSIONS: Implementation of an overnight academic hospitalist program showed no impact on several important clinical outcomes, and revenue generation was modest. As overnight hospitalist programs develop, investigations are needed to delineate the return on investment and focus on other outcomes that may be more sensitive to change, such as errors and provider/patient satisfaction.

Patient-centered interprofessional collaborative care: factors associated with bedside interprofessional rounds.

BACKGROUND: Medical care delivered in hospital-based medicine units requires interprofessional collaborative care (IPCC) to improve quality. However, models such as bedside interprofessional rounds, or encounters that include the team of physician and nurse providers discussing medical care at the patient's bedside, are not well studied. OBJECTIVE: To examine the incidence of and time spent in bedside interprofessional rounds on internal medicine teaching services in one academic medical center. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: Observational descriptive study of internal medicine faculty serving as inpatient medicine attending physicians. Participants completed a daily electronic survey following team rounding sessions to assess rounding characteristics (November 2012-June 2013); variables such as resident level-of-training, attending physician years' of experience, house staff call day and clinic schedule were obtained from administrative data. Descriptive, Kruskal-Wallis, and multivariable logistic regression statistics were used to evaluate the study objectives. MAIN MEASURES: Primary outcomes were: (1) incidence of bedside interprofessional rounds, (2) time spent with patients during bedside interprofessional rounding encounters, and, (3) factors associated with increased occurrence of and time spent with patients during bedside interprofessional rounds. Covariates included resident level-of-training, attending physician years' of experience, census size, and call day. KEY RESULTS: Of 549 rounding sessions, 412 surveys were collected (75 % response) from 25 attending physicians. Bedside interprofessional rounds occurred with 64 % of patients (median 8.0 min/encounter), differing by unit (intermediate care 81 %, general medicine 63 %, non-medicine 57 %, p < 0.001). Factors independently associated with increased occurrence of bedside interprofessional rounds were senior resident (OR 2.67, CI 1.75-4.06, PGY-3/PGY-4 vs. PGY-2), weekdays (OR 1.74, CI 1.13-2.69), team census size ≤ 11 (OR 2.36, CI 1.37-4.06), and attending physicians with ≤ 4 years' experience (OR 2.15, CI 1.31-3.55). Factors independently associated with increased time spent during encounters were attending physicians with ≤ 4 years (OR 2.38, CI 1.44-3.95), 5-15 years of experience (OR 1.82, CI 1.10-3.02), and weekdays (OR 1.71, CI 1.10-2.65). CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight factors associated with increasing or decreasing occurrence and time spent in bedside interprofessional collaborative care delivery. Systematic changes to census size caps, resident scheduling, and attending physician education and staffing may be required to increase the occurrence of interprofessional collaborative care.

Patient care transitions from the emergency department to the medicine ward: evaluation of a standardized electronic signout tool.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of a new electronic handoff tool for emergency department to medicine ward patient transfers over a 1-year period. DESIGN: Prospective mixed-methods analysis of data submitted by medicine residents following admitting shifts before and after eSignout implementation. SETTING: University-based, tertiary-care hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Internal medicine resident physicians admitting patients from the emergency department. INTERVENTION: An electronic handoff tool (eSignout) utilizing automated paging communication and responsibility acceptance without mandatory verbal communication between emergency department and medicine ward providers. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: (i) Incidence of reported near misses/adverse events, (ii) communication of key clinical information and quality of verbal communication and (iii) characterization of near misses/adverse events. RESULTS: Seventy-eight of 80 surveys (98%) and 1058 of 1388 surveys (76%) were completed before and after eSignout implementation. Compared with pre-intervention, residents in the post-intervention period reported similar number of shifts with a near miss/adverse event (10.3 vs. 7.8%; P = 0.27), similar communication of key clinical information, and improved verbal signout quality, when it occurred. Compared with the former process requiring mandatory verbal communication, 93% believed the eSignout was more efficient and 61% preferred the eSignout. Patient safety issues related to perceived sufficiency/accuracy of diagnosis, treatment or disposition, and information quality. CONCLUSIONS: The eSignout was perceived as more efficient and preferred over the mandatory verbal signout process. Rates of reported adverse events were similar before and after the intervention. Our experience suggests electronic platforms with optional verbal communication can be used to standardize and improve the perceived efficiency of patient handoffs.

Content and timing of feedback and reflection: a multi-center qualitative study of experienced bedside teachers.

BACKGROUND: Competency-based medical education increasingly recognizes the importance of observation, feedback, and reflection for trainee development. Although bedside rounds provide opportunities for authentic workplace-based implementation of feedback and team-based reflection strategies, this relationship has not been well described. The authors sought to understand the content and timing of feedback and team-based reflection provided by bedside teachers in the context of patient-centered bedside rounds. METHODS: The authors conducted a thematic analysis qualitative study using transcripts from audio-recorded, semi-structured telephone interviews with internal medicine attending physicians (n= 34) identified as respected bedside teachers from 10 academic US institutions (2010-2011). RESULTS: Half of the respondents (50%) were associate/full professors, with an average of 14 years of academic experience. In the context of bedside encounters, bedside teachers reported providing feedback on history-taking, physical-examination, and case-presentation skills, patient-centered communication, clinical decision-making, leadership, teaching skills, and professionalism. Positive feedback about physical-exam skills or clinical decision-making occurred during encounters, positive or constructive team-based feedback occurred immediately following encounters, and individualized constructive feedback occurred in one-on-one settings following rounding sessions. Compared to less frequent, emotionally-charged events, bedside teachers initiated team-based reflection on commonplace "teachable moments" related to patient characteristics or emotions, trainee actions and emotions, and attending physician role modeling. CONCLUSIONS: Bedside teachers use bedside rounds as a workplace-based method to provide assessment, feedback, and reflection, which are aligned with the goals of competency-based medical education. Embedded in patient-centered activities, clinical teachers should be encouraged to incorporate these content- and timing-related feedback and reflection strategies into their bedside teaching.

Advancement, barriers and collaboration: the ABC's of addressing challenges and designing solutions between front-line physicians and business-oriented leaders.

BACKGROUND: The complexity of US healthcare has been increasing for many years, requiring clinicians and learners to understand care delivery systems in addition to clinical sciences. Thus, there has been a major push to educate faculty and trainees on healthcare functionality. This comes as hospitals expand into health systems requiring the help of more sophisticated expertise of departments such as operations excellence when problem-solving. As a medical student with a background in operations excellence, medical education leader and clinical administration leader all currently facilitating this transition, we wanted to reflect on the barriers we have experienced in clinical implementation of quality improvement projects and educating learners on the impact of operations excellence principles in their clinical education. METHODS: The ideas presented in this article were the result of a several collaborative discussion between the authors, on the key challenges to adopting operations excellence principles into health system science education. In an effort to add context to this reflection through the current body of research present, they supplemented a literature review on the topic which included 86 studies published between 2013 and 2021 regarding health systems science and healthcare leadership engagement in the USA. The themes that intersected between the literature review and the discussions were then expanded on in this paper. RESULTS: Through this process, we identified four challenges: (1) the difference in thinking styles, which we term, 'mental model differences'; (2) the strategic nature of process improvement projects and how that collides with physician priorities, or 'the chess game of stakeholder engagement'; (3) the language and precise methodology, or 'consistency of language and need for administrative resilience' and (4) the issue of teaching these concepts or bridging the learning gap.' CONCLUSION: In an increasingly complex healthcare landscape, physicians and trainee's need to bridge gaps between the mental models of administrative and clinical workflow.

Systems-Based Practice: Expert Perspectives on the Origin and Evolution of an Ambiguous Competency.

PURPOSE: Systems-based practice (SBP) has been a core competency in graduate medical education in the United States since 1999, but it has been difficult to operationalize in residency programs due to its conceptual ambiguity. The authors explored the historical origin and subsequent development of the SBP competency from the perspective of individuals who were influential across critical phases of its implementation and ensuing development. The goal of this study was to elicit the history of SBP from the perspective of individuals who have expertise in it and to use those findings to inform the current SBP construct. METHOD: Between March and July 2021, 24 physicians, nurses, educators, and leaders in the field of SBP were individually interviewed about the origin and meaning of SBP as practiced in U.S. medical education using a semistructured guide. Individuals were selected based upon their influence on the origin or evolution of the SBP competency. Data were iteratively collected and analyzed using real-time analytic memos, regular adjudication sessions with the research team, and thematic analysis. Researchers identified themes from participants' perspectives and agreed upon the final results and quotations. RESULTS: Five themes were identified: SBP has many different definitions, SBP was intentionally designed to be vague, systems thinking was identified as the foundation of the SBP competency, the 6 core competencies established in the United States by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education were developed to be interdependent, and the SBP and practice-based learning and improvement competencies are uniquely related and synergistic. CONCLUSIONS: Interview data indicate that since its inception, SBP has been a nuanced and complex competency, resulting in a lack of mutually shared understanding among stakeholders. This deliberate historical examination of expert perspectives provides insight into specific areas for improving how SBP is taught and learned.