1. Better Teams With
Microsoft Teams
Travis Gerrard, MD - Chief Resident @ VM
Background
Effective communication is an important part
of managing residents. We recently partook in
an overhaul of the mediums through which
we, as Chiefs, communicate with residents in
order to improve resident satisfaction
Method / Results
- Cross sectional study of senior residents
- 2 months after implementation
- 70% of senior residents sampled
57% preferred the new medium of
communication
Conclusion
- After an overhaul of communication
mediums with residents, Microsoft Teams
became a unified communication platform
within the residency
- This new medium is preferred by residents
over what came before it
- Great potential as much functionality
remains to be explored and utilized
Previous mediums for communication
Large group
Pager: Time sensitive reminders
Email: General information
Private/Small group
Text Message/Pager: Urgent notifications
Email: Essential but not urgent messages
Implementation of a unified medium to
streamline and augment communication
with residents, Microsoft Teams
Large group communication facilitated by
the creation of individual “Teams”
- VMIMR (The whole residency)
- Noon Conference
- Morning Conference
- Wards
- Eastgate (King Country Resident Clinic)
- Categoricals
- Chief Chat
Each “Team" is a curated selection of
residents containing a message feed and
file repository
For individual/small group communication
we utilized Teams “Chat” functionality
43% had no opinion regarding mediums of
communication
0% preferred the prior mediums of
communication
Key Improvements:
- Consolidation of communication mediums
- Share, edit & discuss files within a “Team”
- Easy to access schedules / articles
- Realtime polls/discussion during conference
Flaws in prior mediums for chief/resident communication
Pager: For urgent hospital communication
Email: Checked infrequently by some residents
Text Message: For personal communication
Method of Quality Improvement
