Tensions and Tempers on WIHI

Madge Kaplan writes:

The next WIHI broadcast — Transforming Tensions and Tempers on Health Care Teams — will take place on Thursday, April 24, from 2 to 3 PM ET, and I hope you'll tune in.

Our guests will include:

• Neil Baker, Principal, Neil Baker Consulting and Coaching
• Nan Cochran, MD, President, American Academy on Communication in Health Care (AACH); Director, On Doctoring
• Calvin Chou, MD, PhD, FAACH, Professor of Clinical Medicine, UCSF; Vice President for External Education, AACH

The last thing a patient needs to experience at a hospital or a clinic is tensions between staff members. Yet, we've all been there and seen and heard things that make us wonder “who isn’t getting along with whom” or, worse, are we getting the best care when we can tell providers are just barely disguising their frustrations with one another? It's a fair question, especially since health care is being redesigned at all levels to be more of a team effort. Doesn't that mean that the team has to be cohesive and everyone needs to get along?

We're going to get into this important issue on the April 24 WIHI: Transforming Tensions and Tempers on Health Care Teams. The topic couldn’t be timelier, and we’ve brought together an expert group that spoke to a packed room about managing conflict on health care teams at IHI’s National Forum in December.

Neil Baker is familiar to many of you as an IHI faculty member who’s spent the past 30 years helping organizations and professionals better deal with the “people issues” that can not only stall improvement work but also jeopardize patient safety. Nan Cochran wears a lot of hats, including being President of the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare. Dr. Cochran does a lot of training in conflict management and negotiation, which we’ll tap into on the April 24 WIHI.

Calvin Chou at UCSF rounds out our panel. His work focuses on teaching medical students and residents humanistic clinical skills that are critical to communicating more effectively with patients. Some of these same skills can help health care teams better appreciate their differences and avoid overreacting to one another, to the detriment of the team and patients.

What are you and your colleagues learning about building rapport and resolving tensions? I hope you’ll tune into the April 24 WIHI to share your experiences, learn from our experts, and bring members of your health care team with you. And, if you sometimes wonder what’s behind some of the difficult behaviors on teams, here’s some interesting additional reading. See you on April 24!

I hope you'll join us! You can enroll for the broadcast here.