Quality Team Coaching for Rural BC

Research shows that high-functioning healthcare teams exhibit eight consistent elements: Self-awareness and well-being; situational awareness and adaptability; psychological safety; supportive open flow of communication; shared commitment to values, roles and goals; shared leadership; empowering team infrastructure; and having a learning culture. With this in mind, Quality Team Coaching for Rural BC (QTC4RBC) supports interprofessional teams in optimizing their team culture of safety, learning, and quality, which leads to positive patient and provider experiences. This multi-component Program includes coach-led workshops, team and leadership coaching sessions, financial support for a team quality plan, and access to a concierge service and quality advisor.

Achievements & Impact

Adapted the Program to become fully virtual

Accepted 11 teams into the Program

Gathered preliminary feedback from workshops

Improved teams’ communication, accountability, and morale

Looking ahead

QTC4RBC Overview

It was a year of significant transformation for QTC4RBC. Due to the COVID–19 pandemic, the Program was temporarily paused for the Spring and Summer months in 2020. This allowed the team to fully adapt the Program into a virtual offering—a significant undertaking.

Despite the pause, after two application rounds, 11 teams were accepted into QTC4RBC. Three teams completed its workshop portion as of March 31, 2021, and will continue on to the next phase of the Program. The remaining teams are scheduled to begin throughout the Spring of 2021.

The Program is being evaluated on an ongoing basis. Although analysis of the initial data is yet to be completed, preliminary feedback about the impact of the Program’s workshop component has been overwhelmingly positive. Participants have said:

“This program made me feel heard and that others had the same concerns I did when I thought I was alone with my frustrations about the work environment. I felt supported by the team and am hopeful for changes to happen within the hospital and that we will improve communication between all departments.”

“There has been more communication and engagement within the group. We have been discussing the group outside of the meeting times, sharing ideas and holding each other accountable for our goals.”

“I feel like we smile at each other in the hallway more…we know each other a bit better. We check in with other members more.”

“The most effective part of the Program was having people move outside of their comfort zones and engage in the smaller groups. Allowing people to lose their anonymity in the smaller groups gave them the ability to feel comfortably and safely heard in the larger group discussions. Doing this ensured that everyone was engaged and heard.”

In the coming year, the participating QTC4RBC teams will continue their journeys through the Program and staff will begin analyzing the evaluation data being collected. They will use these research findings to assess the outcomes of the Program, as well as opportunities to improve it, and ensure that it helps healthcare teams develop a culture that improves patient safety and enhances satisfaction and joy for the healthcare providers.

How have we shown or built resilience in BC during a challenging year?

“The COVID pandemic required QTC4RBC to make a number of adaptations this year. In-person workshops, originally scheduled to start in the Spring of 2020, had to be cancelled. The Program was subsequently converted from having an in-person workshop to an entirely virtual delivery. We also worked with participating teams to reschedule virtual workshop modules conflicting with days that vaccines were arriving in communities, doing real-time accommodation of community and provider needs, and adjusting to local realities in support of healthy teams.

The impact of this work is crucial to resilience of individual health providers, their healthcare teams, the healthcare system, patients, and the province, as a whole. Helping healthcare teams enhance their functionality increases job satisfaction, decreases errors, increases patient safety, reduces missed care, improves staff retention, reduces mortality, and improves teamwork, adaptability and performance.”
Dr. Anthon Meyer
Medical Lead, Quality Team Coaching for Rural BC, RCCbc

Team Members: Adrienne Peltonen, Kassia Skolski