This year's 26th Annual National Faculty Development Course at Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL was perhaps the biggest change AACH has ever attempted in the "Summer Course" format. That is, since the revolutionary first Course was offered at Brown University in 1982. The 2008 Course focused on team building. This was more than a theme. It was the subject matter of the Course. To enhance the effectiveness of the learning, we allowed intact teams from Mayo and other institutions to form small groups with an AACH facilitator and usually an FIT as co-facilitator. There were additionally individuals who followed a more traditional AACH format.
 
My group was an entire MICU leadership team (medical director, three nurses, pharmacy and respiratory therapy directors) from Mayo Rochester. Luckily, I had a very able FIT to help me. But facilitating this group-who had worked together for several years and already formed patterns of interaction, especially addressing "team building" with a real, highly-functioning team--was truly a challenge. So the challenge was invigorating. I found it hard to do traditional personal awareness but facilitating honest and direct feedback was something we are good at and proved highly relevant in enhancing team-work, as well as achieving some personal awareness for the individuals.
 
Thankfully, our Course Director, Marla Rowe Gorosh, and our VP of Education, Maysel Kemp White, planned faculty development that included reading materials, a refresher on the theory of teams, and some highly useful and fun exercises. The wonderful AACH faculty had worked hard to create workshop tracks, including one on team building that provided me each morning with a trove of new ideas for the afternoon session with our group. At the end, I felt we had contributed to a great group of professionals who will work together on an even higher plane to deliver superb patient care. AACH succeeded in offering a new course on the cutting edge of today's practice. Many thanks to Bill Maples, Course Co-director, who first approached us about hosting a course on team building at Mayo Jacksonville.
 
Team-building is now in our repertory. This is not to say that we won't go back to a more traditional format for future Courses. Personally, I would like to see us vary our offerings from the traditional AACH "Summer Course" at a major medical school to new challenges related to today's healthcare--quality improvement and patient-safety come to mind, both much dependent on communication skills.
 
I am immensely proud of our Leaders, Faculty and FIT's for meeting the challenge of this newly-designed Summer Course.
 
Best wishes, Bill

 

Translating Communications Research:

Bench to Bedside to Community

 

2008 AACH Forum

October 17-19, 2008

Madison, Wisconsin

 

 

Don't forget nominations for the Engel and Payer awards are due July 15.  

 

Please send a nomination letter that outlines why you believe the nominee should receive the award and attach a copy of the nominee's curriculum vitae. You may send in your nominations for either one or both awards. Please verify that your nominee will be available to attend the awards ceremony at the conference dinner Saturday, October 18.  

 

Please remember that all fellowship applications are due by August 1. Information is available on the AACH Web site.

AACH

Looking for a way to improve skills? Want to build your program in healthcare communication? AACH has the ability to tailor institutional courses for faculty or clinicians and will work collaboratively with you to create a course that fits your needs.

 

Please contact Chris Pallozola, AACH executive director, at chris@AACHonline.org for information about what AACH can offer your organization.

 

AACH

Get Connected with AACH's doc.com: An interactive learning resource for healthcare communication

 

Go to our demonstration Web site where you can sign up for a 15-day free trial.

 

At AACH, we are certain that your efforts to develop learners competence in the core skills of communication and professionalism will better succeed if you/ they subscribe to doc.com: An interactive learning resource for healthcare communication.

 

doc.com module authors, with decades of teaching experience, demonstrate skills on video. The web resource has e-learning interactive features such as hot links to citations, easy movement between more or less text detail, active sidebars that name demonstrated skills, hot links to author commentaries on their interviews and (new feature!) patient commentaries, too. Module assessments provide feedback to learners and their teachers or course directors, including documentation to meet competency requirements. Our 40 modules cover all the communication competencies that a recent Institute of Medicine Report considered essential for physicians.

 

AACH

As the official journal of AACH, Patient Education and Counseling (PEC) is offered to AACH members at a special discount. Subscribe now for 2007 and receive

12 issues (print and online) for $106

 

This represents a discount off the regular rate of $168 Please e-mail Sherry Erker, Member Services Manager, for more information at erker@drakeco.com.

 

Note: AACH members subscribing to PEC can access their journal through ScienceDirect. Information that explains how to complete the registration process and who you should contact if you have problems or questions is posted on AACH's Web site, www.AACHonline.org.

 

To view an online sample copy of PEC

 

 

 2-5 September 2008, Oslo, Norway

 

Dear friends of the Ethical Force Program,
 
We wanted to let you all know that the Ethical Force Program's organizational assessment toolkit for patient-centered communication is now available. I know several of you have worked with us on different parts of this communication project and will be happy to know we are continuing to move forward.
 
The direct link to the toolkit is

 http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/18225.html

Thank you,
Jennifer
 
Are your patients getting the right message?
New toolkit from the AMA Ethical Force Program helps you assess how effectively your organization communicates.
Illness, fear, low literacy, foreign languages and cultures, and many other factors can make it difficult for your staff to communicate with patients. "Improving communication-improving care" is a new performance measurement toolkit from the Ethical Force Program® at the American Medical Association (AMA) designed to assist your organization in meeting the needs of a diverse patient population. This one-of-a-kind resource can help you assess how effectively your organization communicates and target resources for improvement exactly where they're needed.
 
Toolkit includes: 1) Surveys and cover letters to gather feedback from your health care organization's leaders, staff and patients; 2) A handy user's guide; 3) Templates to help you enter and analyze survey results; 4) An analysis guide; 5) Model PowerPoint® presentations and other promotional materials to present your survey results to staff and leaders.
 
Patient-centered communication is critical for high-quality health care and it can lead to higher patient satisfaction, greater loyalty and positive health outcomes. Make sure your patients are getting the right message-visit www.ethicalforce.org (click organizational assessment toolkit in right sidebar) for more information and to order your toolkit today.
 
Jennifer Matiasek
Research Associate, Institute for Ethics
American Medical Association
515 North State Street
Chicago, IL 60610
312.464.4710
 

 

In this welcome addition to the growing field of narrative medicine; physician Loreen Herwaldt uses the illness narratives of two dozen writer-patients to teach listening skills to medical students, residents, physicians, and other health care providers.

 

Herwaldt skillfully pares each narrative down to its most basic elements, rendering them into powerful found poems that she has used successfully in her role as a teacher and in her own practice. Drawing from narratives by writers who are both emerging and well known, including Oliver Sacks, Richard Selzer, and Mary Swander, each poem reveals the experience of illness and treatment from the patient's perspective. Patient Listening includes a detailed general introduction and a how-to guide that will prove invaluable in the classroom and in clinical practice.

 

This book will inspire thoughtfulness in everyone who reads it. It is also designed to foster discussions about all aspects of the patient experience from ethics to stigmatization to health insurance. Patient Listening is not just about bedside manner but also about how health care providers can gain the most from their interactions with patients and in turn offer more appropriate treatments, develop more cooperative and responsive relationships with their patients, and thus become better doctors.

 

http://www.uipress.uiowa.edu/books/2008-spring/herwaldt.htm

 

A Practical Guide to Teaching and Assessing the ACGME Core Competencies

by Elizabeth A. Rider, MSW, MD, Ruth Nawotniak, MS, CTAGME and Gary Smith, EdD (HCPro, Inc., 2007)

 

This book provides research, best practices, models, and tools for teaching and assessing core medical education competencies required by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) for residency programs and adopted by many medical schools, licensing and medical specialty boards in the US and internationally.  An invaluable and practical book that has broad applicability across all levels of medical education, from medical students to residents to practicing physicians. Available from Amazon.com, other booksellers, and the publisher at: http://www.hcmarketplace.com/prod-5156.html

 

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

 

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

The Behavioral Science Column of Medical Encounter is devoted to applying behavioral and social science theories, clinical interventions and research findings to medical practice. Familiarity with the range of psychological treatments enhances the physician's ability to provide optimal care, to address psychophysiological symptoms and to refer the patient for specialized mental health care when necessary. The behavioral science literature on transference, personality styles, trauma, and attachment theory can help inform physician-patient interactions, influence patients' ability to cope with illness, influence adherence, and even affect medical outcomes. If you would like to write an article utilizing the behavioral and social sciences to enhance medical practice or education, I welcome your ideas and submissions. Please submit to the Behavioral Science Editor alyce_getler@hms.harvard.edu. Thank you!

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Patient Education and Counseling seeks reviewers of papers submitted to the journal for potential publication. If you are interested in becoming a reviewer for this journal on topics related to the study of healthcare communications, please log on to the Elsevier Web site, http://ees.elsevier.com/pec to sign up and e-mail the subjects you'd like to review to Dr. Larry Wissow, Editor, Patient Education and Counseling, at Lwissow@jhsph.edu

 

Read on...