Translating Team Science into Primary Care: PCOR on teamwork in FQHCs

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Ensuring that patients, particularly those who are socially disadvantaged, have a meaningful voice in their healthcare while also ensuring they receive high value care, requires new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR). Optimizing patients' voice and value in primary care requires transformation of healthcare delivery from care by lone clinicians to care by teams. This career enhancement proposal is designed to provide me with the mentoring, skills, experiences, and partnerships necessary to re-focus my research on this new area of PCOR, i.e. translation of teamwork science into primary care, particularly within federally qualified health centers (FQHCs). I will achieve this aim through stakeholder collaboration, including refining, piloting, and evaluating the Patient-Teamlet Communication (PTC) model. This new model, based on teamlets (teams of clinicians and nursing staff), integrates the science of patient-centered communication with the science of teamwork. The project aim builds on the work of my renowned mentors and consultants and will be accomplished through guided self-study, offsite and onsite training, and application of PCOR methods to piloting of the PTC model within an FQHC. The PTC model enhances patients voice and value by focusing on critical taskwork and teamwork during primary care office visits, including elicitation of patient concerns and preferences and team-based delivery of evidence-based preventive care and other high value processes. The model focuses on the following key office visit processes: pre-visit planning, team huddles and debriefing, team use of clinical decision support systems, full elicitation of patients concerns, and post-visit confirmation of understanding and planning. The proposed project will develop training modules using feasible strategies relevant to FQHCs. My specific educational objectives are: 1) To enhance my skills in direct observation of primary care visits with a focus on tasks and teamwork; 2) To acquire teamwork training skills applicable to primary care; 3) To enhance my skills relevant to stakeholder and patient engagement; 4) To acquire teamwork assessment skills. My specific research aims are: 1)To refine and pilot the PTC model within an FQHC; 2) To pilot key PCOR measures relevant to facets of the PTC model; 3) To examine key facilitators and barriers to implementation of the PTC model. Achievement of these educational and research aims will provide me with the experiences, skills, partnerships, measures, and preliminary data necessary to launch inquiry into this entirely new area of PCOR. This research offers the promise for transforming care for millions of underserved and socially disadvantaged patients served by FQHCs and for reducing health care disparities.