PCDC’s team-based care training can take an unexpected turn, as internal medicine residents recently discovered at BronxCare Health System.

To instill principles of team-based care and collaboration, participants were given an assortment of common household items — and instructed to build the tallest tower possible in 10 minutes.

Participants completing a team-based care exercise designed by PCDC’s Yael S. Lipton, MPH, MCHES

With varying degrees of success — and much laughter — the simple but effective training device conveyed the value of listening to peers and working together toward a common goal.

“Our curriculum specialists design staff training sessions with adult learning in mind,” said PCDC Senior Project Manager Amy Breyer. “They’re not just informative — they’re also fun.”

Led by Breyer and Sarahjane Rath, PCDC’s Curriculum Development and Training Specialist, the four-hour session was designed to accomplish three goals:

1. Understanding team-based care, especially for doctors whose patients are living with multiple chronic conditions
2. Defining team roles and the challenges of operating within team-based care
3. Recognizing the advantages of team-based care for both providers and patients

“The training is effective because it combines both didactic and interactive learning to reinforce the underlying takeaways,” said Rath. “Team-based care must be experiential in order to truly understand and connect with the concepts being taught — a foundation of PCDC’s training approach.”

A second activity appeared deceptively simple: completing a handout to describe every team member and their role. However, the complexities soon became clear as participants asked clarifying questions and realized their misconceptions about each other’s functions on the team.

“Team-based care is a different type of learning and experience than residents are normally exposed to, which adds to the value of PCDC’s training at this point in their education,” said Breyer.

As for BronxCare, participants said the session shifted how they viewed their work.

“This training opened my eyes in ways I didn’t expect,” one participant wrote in a survey. “It was a very enjoyable few hours that provided practical, real-world approaches to team-based care. I’m eager to take these new skills back to my own work.”