Event Title
Patient-Centered Team Sampling Units: An Innovative Methodological Practice for Studying Healthcare Teams
Start Date
5-10-2011 9:20 AM
End Date
5-10-2011 9:25 AM
Abstract
Background
Recent guidelines and consensus panels in the cardiology community advocate provision of palliative care concurrent with congestive heart failure (CHF) treatment. However, this emerging call for palliative care integration is based on research evidence derived from the study of individual patients and individual providers – their needs, preferences, attitudes and knowledge. Such work is insufficient to inform the development of educational and practice interventions that must be enacted not by isolated individuals but by members of a complex and distributed CHF care team that includes the patient with CHF and their primary care and heart specialist physicians, nurses, social workers, homecare workers and family caregivers. In order to inform integration efforts, we require research into the experiences and expectations of the CHF care team.
Methods
An approach to gathering qualitative data from across a distributed healthcare team was piloted using an innovative sampling strategy beginning with index patients and then sampling outward. Patients with congestive heart failure were interviewed and asked to identify key members of their care team. These members, including family caregivers, heart specialists and general practitioners, were also interviewed regarding the index patient’s care. Transcripts are being analyzed to explore patterns in terms of attitudes, expectations, and current practices.
Results
Five team sampling units have been assembled; seven more are in progress. The team sampling units provide insight into the diverging and converging viewpoints of each of these patient care stakeholders around the issues of CHF care and palliative care integration. Role clarification and conflicting assumptions are emerging as salient. The team sampling unit is emerging as an effective, ethical and feasible method for accessing insights from across distributed healthcare team.
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Patient-Centered Team Sampling Units: An Innovative Methodological Practice for Studying Healthcare Teams
Background
Recent guidelines and consensus panels in the cardiology community advocate provision of palliative care concurrent with congestive heart failure (CHF) treatment. However, this emerging call for palliative care integration is based on research evidence derived from the study of individual patients and individual providers – their needs, preferences, attitudes and knowledge. Such work is insufficient to inform the development of educational and practice interventions that must be enacted not by isolated individuals but by members of a complex and distributed CHF care team that includes the patient with CHF and their primary care and heart specialist physicians, nurses, social workers, homecare workers and family caregivers. In order to inform integration efforts, we require research into the experiences and expectations of the CHF care team.
Methods
An approach to gathering qualitative data from across a distributed healthcare team was piloted using an innovative sampling strategy beginning with index patients and then sampling outward. Patients with congestive heart failure were interviewed and asked to identify key members of their care team. These members, including family caregivers, heart specialists and general practitioners, were also interviewed regarding the index patient’s care. Transcripts are being analyzed to explore patterns in terms of attitudes, expectations, and current practices.
Results
Five team sampling units have been assembled; seven more are in progress. The team sampling units provide insight into the diverging and converging viewpoints of each of these patient care stakeholders around the issues of CHF care and palliative care integration. Role clarification and conflicting assumptions are emerging as salient. The team sampling unit is emerging as an effective, ethical and feasible method for accessing insights from across distributed healthcare team.