Background: Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) conferences are common practice among internal medicine (IM) residency programs, but their effect on education and patient safety (PS) is inconsistent.[1,2] Existing research reports have struggled to identify best practices for implementing M&M conferences due to inherent variability in personnel and adverse event analysis processes. We need interventions that account for inherent variability in the process of analyzing safety events. ‘Teaming’ is a conceptual approach to projects requiring dynamic teamwork and focuses on team processes (i.e., hardware) and attitudes/values (i.e., software) (see Table). Teaming is ideal in situations where variation and unpredictability are high, as is the case with M&M.[3] However, we are unaware of interventions based on teaming principles that have been designed for or applied to the M&M conference.
Purpose: To apply the ‘teaming’ framework to better address and act upon systems issues identified during M&M conferences and enhance the educational value of M&M for our internal medicine (IM) residents.
Description: Our intervention began with forming a Quality Improvement/Patient Safety (QIPS) Council, which includes IM residents, one chief medical resident, and one associate program director to serve as the faculty mentor. To improve the outcomes of the M&M conference, the QIPS Council designed and implemented multiple interventions that align with core principles of teaming (see Table).Evaluation of our teaming interventions is ongoing, but early feedback from IM residents regarding the educational value and engagement level during the M&M conference has been universally positive. Additionally, our M&M teaming interventions have led to the initiation of nine quality improvement projects, three of which have already resulted in interventions to improve patient care.
Conclusions: Utilizing a dynamic, teaming approach to address curricular changes, including the M&M conference, can successfully improve both education and patient care. In the future, we hope to identify even more pervasive systems issues that can incite improvement in our hospital.
