By Debbie Bolles

Students took part in a game show-style competition at the conclusion of Convergence Day 2015.

Students pursuing health professions converged in late March for a half-day educational event aimed at promoting teamwork at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Participants in the sixth annual Convergence Day, which focused on interprofessional teamwork in a clinical setting, included 480 students:

• 240 from UT Southwestern Medical School,
• 120 from UT Southwestern School of Health Professions, and
• 120 nursing students from Texas Woman’s University.

“Effective teamwork is necessary to achieve competent care that is safe, timely, effective, efficient, and equitable,” said Dr. Kristine Kamm, Professor of Physiology at UT Southwestern and this year’s event director.

To put into practice the teamwork skills they learned, students were split into groups to act out a care-team response plan for a case study tied to this year’s event theme − aging. The hypothetical patient was an 87-year-old woman with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease about to be discharged from a skilled nursing facility following a hip fracture. The woman’s husband, 90, wanted his wife to return to their two-story home with him as sole caregiver.

“That was an enlightening experience of how each role on the panel had valuable knowledge and skills to offer that uniquely contributed to better care for the patient,” said first-year UT Southwestern Medical School student Benjamin Weia. “The activities reminded me to look at health care from the perspective of a team: that multiple people can be involved in the care of a single patient.”

The small-group exercise was followed by a keynote speech on team-building strategies from Dr. Oren Guttman, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Management. Dr. Guttman taught Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS), a curriculum designed to optimize performance among health care teams.

“We hope to instill in the students a sense of personal responsibility, to provide an introduction to some human factors behind team dysfunction, and to offer practical solutions on how interdisciplinary teams can optimize their interactions,” said Dr. Guttman, a TeamSTEPPS master trainer.

Patricia Gallagher, a first-year clinical nutrition student in the School of Health Professions, said the program gave her an appreciation for roles of various health care team members and how they intersect for optimal patient care.

“As an aspiring registered dietitian, I hope that the team I work with in the future implements the components of this program: collaboration, respect for team members, leadership, and emphasis on patient safety,” she said. “In order to provide exceptional care to patients, everyone needs to respect, understand, and value what each team member brings to the table.”

The event concluded with a game show-style competition that tested interprofessional teams of students on what they had learned in the categories: The Cooper family; TeamSTEPPS, Age-ology, Health Professions, and Fun Facts. The blue team placed first – earning members UT Southwestern coffee mugs – and all 480 students received a TeamSTEPPS Pocket Guide for quick reference to skills learned in the program.

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