Healthcare Teams & Personalized Medicine Notes

Feedback and Assignments

  • Feedback is taken seriously to adjust the course.
  • Clinical reasoning road map project was due last night and will be graded this week, hopefully by Friday.
  • Another CoReact assignment is due next Sunday evening by midnight.

Kreps Article: Communication and Effective Interprofessional Healthcare Teams

The article serves as a review of topics previously discussed.

Why Healthcare Teams Are Important?

  • Better Outcomes: Literature shows that outcomes are better with healthcare teams.
  • Medical Errors: Healthcare teams came about due to healthcare deaths caused by medical errors.
  • Reduced Burnout: Healthcare teams reduce burnout because the burden isn't all on one person. Multiple minds can provide input.
  • Teams involve various roles, disciplines, and settings.

Sharing Information

  • Action is required based on shared information.
  • Ideas are shared and then acted upon for the patient's benefit.
  • Implementing actions based on shared information is vital.

Knowledge and Humility

  • The longer you are in the profession, the more you realize you don't know.
  • The more you know, the more you realize there is to know.
  • New graduates often overestimate their abilities.
  • Regular team meetings are common in acute care and rehab settings.
  • It is important to effectively interact and blend different perspectives.

Healthcare Team Members

  • Besides healthcare disciplines, patients, families, and caregivers should be part of the team.

Major Challenges for Healthcare Teams

  • Managing Conflict: Managing conflict is a significant challenge for any team, including healthcare teams.
  • Conflict is not always bad; it allows for growth.
  • In the past, physicians were considered the ultimate authority, and others hesitated to speak up even when they knew something was wrong.
  • Speaking up is crucial to prevent costly errors.
  • Collaboration has improved this situation.

Group Think Mentality

  • Avoid group think, where strong personalities can lead the team in a suboptimal direction.
  • Consider other perspectives, ideas, and courses of action.

Role of the Group Leader in Managing Team Conflict

  • Diffuse the situation.
  • Propose solutions.
  • Mediate the conflict.
  • Encourage alternate perspectives.
  • Facilitate open communication.

Ted Talk by Eric Dishman: Healthcare Should Be a Team Sport

Primary Focus

  • Individualized care per patient vs. a blanket approach for the disease process.
  • Patient autonomy and ownership over their health.

Suggested Approach

  • Instead of a single specialist, healthcare should be personalized.

Three Elements of Personal Healthcare

  • Care customization.
  • Care networking: good communication.
  • Care can be done anywhere: brickless care.
  • Care should be more flexible and less costly overall.

Kidney Transplant and Demonstration

  • Dishman demonstrated giving himself an ultrasound after his kidney transplant.
  • He was trained to do the ultrasound for the video.
  • A physician analyzed the ultrasound in real-time while Dishman performed it in front of an audience.

Poorly Coordinated Healthcare Example

  • Dishman was prescribed the same medication by three different physicians.
  • He developed side effects and spent time and money on a misdiagnosed heart issue.
  • His medication list was not reviewed properly, leading to overmedication.

Negatives of Uncoordinated Care

  • Significant problems, financial burden, and psychosocial trauma related to misdiagnosis.

Future of Healthcare (Eric Dishman's Suggestion)

  • Incredible technology available for communication and remote testing using phones and apps.
  • Customizing care for each person.
  • Genome sequencing.

Feasibility of Genome Sequencing

  • Genome sequencing is something that can be done but may not be of interest to all powers.
  • The healthcare machine is huge, and some want to perpetuate it to keep it going.
  • Expensive technology may not be necessary for everyone.

Video on Clinical Case Demonstration

  • A 20-minute clinical case demonstration video will be watched.
  • Guiding questions are available in the digital presentation.
  • The video will be discussed after the break.